This _Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads_[723] has far more of modesty in it than his earlier writings, which were necessarily occupied with self-assertion. In his old age he shows himself a little alarmed at his more youthful readiness to take up the challenge which he had seen Democracy and Science throwing down to Poetry. He recognises with clearer vision than many of his friends, his own weakness in poetic technique, and the experimental nature of his work in poetry. But he does not pretend to doubt its importance; for, as he avers, it is the projection of a new and American attitude of mind. He is not without confidence also, that his book will prove a comfort to others, since it has been the main comfort of his own solitary life--and he believes it will be found a stimulus to the American nation of his love. The poems of the new collection are all brief and many of them are descriptive. For the rest, they are mainly the assertions of a jocund heart defying the ice-cold, frost-bound winter of old-age, and waiting for the sure-following spring. Meanwhile, he enjoys the inner mysteries, and the enforced quiet of these later days, these starry nights; living, as he quaintly says, in "the early candlelight of old-age".[724] To him they sometimes seem to be the best, the halcyon days of all. Not from successful love alone, Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war; But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm, As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky, As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air, As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree, Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all! The brooding and blissful halcyon days![725] He often reviews his past, so seemingly purposeless and incoherent, and yet so profoundly urged from its source within toward the unseen goal. Still before him, he sees endless vistas of the eternal purpose. The secret souls of things speak to him; the restless sea betrays the unsatisfied passion of the Earth's great heart;[726] the rain bears love back with it to the mountains whence it came.[727] Everything instructs him, for he remains eager to learn--criticism and rejection at least as much as acceptance. * * * * * Sometimes the long process of dying--the painfully prolonged separating of a Body and Soul which were more intimately wedded than are others--leaves its mark upon the page; as in a brief note where he states simply that his solemn experiences at this period are unlikely to occur in any other human life.[728] He felt himself solitary even in his pain. But this was a solitude hallowed and supported by the Everlasting Arms. * * * * *