Yes!—twenty years have pass’d, and I am come, Unknown, unwelcomed, to my early home; A stranger, striving in my walks to trace The youthful features in some aged face. On as I move, some curious looks I read; We pause a moment, doubt, and then proceed. They’re like what once I saw, but not the same; I lose the air, the features, and the name. 70 Yet something seems like knowledge, but the change Confuses me, and all in him is strange. That bronzed old Sailor, with his wig awry— Sure he will know me! No, he passes by. They seem like me in doubt; but they can call Their friends around them—I am lost to all. The very place is alter’d. What I left Seems of its space and dignity bereft: The streets are narrow, and the buildings mean; Did I, or Fancy, leave them broad and clean? 80 The ancient church, in which I felt a pride, As struck by magic, is but half as wide; The tower is shorter, the sonorous bell Tells not the hour as it was wont to tell; The market dwindles, every shop and stall Sinks in my view; there’s littleness in all. Mine is the error; prepossess’d I see; And all the change I mourn is change in me. One object only is the same; the sight Of the wide Ocean by the moon’s pale light, 90 With her long ray of glory, that we mark On the wild waves when all beside is dark. This is the work of Nature, and the eye In vain the boundless prospect would descry: What mocks our view cannot contracted be; We cannot lessen what we cannot see. Would I could now a single Friend behold, Who would the yet mysterious facts unfold, That Time yet spares, and to a stranger show Th’ events he wishes, and yet fears to know! 100 Much by myself I might in listening glean, Mix’d with the crowd, unmark’d if not unseen; Uninterrupted, I might ramble on, Nor cause an interest, nor a thought, in one. For who looks backward to a being tost About the world, forgotten long, and lost; For whom, departing, not a tear was shed, Who disappear’d, was missing, and was dead— Save that he left no grave, where some might pass, And ask each other who that being was! 110 I, as a ghost invisible, can stray Among the crowd, and cannot lose my way; My ways are where the voice of man is known, Though no occasion offers for my own; My eager mind to fill with food I seek, And, like the ghost, await for one to speak. See I not One whom I before have seen? That face, though now untroubled and serene, That air, though steady now, that look, though tame, Pertain to one, whom, though I doubt to name, 120 Yet was he not a dashing youth and wild, Proud as a man, and haughty when a child? Talents were his; he was in nature kind, With lofty, strong, and independent mind; His father wealthy, but, in very truth, He was a rash, untamed, expensive youth; And, as I now remember the report,