The sun goes down the western afternoon, Lacing the clouds with his diverging rays: Homeward the children from the village school Come whooping on; but aye their voices fall, As aye they turn unto the old man's door-- So much they love him. He their progress notes In learning, and has prizes for their zeal, Flowers for the girls, and fruit, hooks for the boys, Whistles, and cherry-stones; and, to maintain The thews and sinews of our coming men, He makes them run and leap upon the green. The nodding wain has borne the harvest home, And yellowing apples spot the orchard trees: Now may you oft the Old Soldado see Stumping relieved against the evening sky Along the ferny height--so much he loves Its keen and wholesome air; nor less he loves To hear the rustling of the fallen leaves, Swept by the wind along the glittering road, As home he goes beneath the autumnal moon. Thus round the starry girdle of the year His spirit circles thankfully. Not grieved When winter comes once more, with chosen books He sits with Wisdom by his evening fire; Puff goes his cheerful pipe; by turns he works; And ever from his door, before he sleeps, He views the stars of night, and thinks of Him Whose simplest fiat is the birth of worlds. CAMPAIGN THE THIRD. Lo! yonder sea-mew seeks the inland moss: Beautiful bird! how snowy clean it shows Behind the ploughman, on a glinting day, Trooping with rooks, and farther still relieved Against the dark-brown mould, alighting half, Half hovering still; yet far more beautiful Its glistening sleekness, when from out the deep Sudden and shy emerging on your lee, What time through breeze, and spray, and freshening brine, Your snoring ship, beneath her cloud of sail, Bends on her buried side, carried it rides The green curled billow and the seething froth, Turning its startled head this way and that, Half looking at you with its wild blue eye, Then moves its fluttering wings and dives anew! Smoking his pipe of peace, wearing away The summer eve, the old Soldado sits Beneath his buzzing oak, and eyes the bird, With many a thought of the suggested sea. The veering gull came circling back and near: "What! nearer still?" the Veteran said, and rose, And doffed his bonnet, and held down his pipe: "Give me her message, then! O be to me Her spirit not unconscious from the deep Of how I mourn her lost! Ah! bird, you're gone. Vain dreamer I! For every night my soul Knocks at the gates of the invisible world But no one answers me, no little hand Comes out to grasp at mine. Well, all is good: Even, bird, thy heart-deceiving change of flight, To teach me patience, was ordained of old."