Every day I met some face I knew. My college friends Came up in strange disguises. Here was one, With a white neck-cloth and a saintly face, Who had been rusticated and disgraced For lawlessness. Now he administered A charge which proved that he had been at work, And made himself a man. And there was one-- A lumpy sort of boy, as memory Recalled him to me--grown to portliness And splendid spectacles. He drove a chaise, And practised surgery,--was on his way To meet a class of youth, who sought to be Great surgeons like himself, and took full notes Of all his stolen wisdom. By his watch-- A gold repeater, with a mighty chain-- He gave me just five minutes; then rolled off--- Pretension upon wheels. Another grasped My hand as if I were his bosom friend, Just in from a long voyage. He was one Who stole my wood in college, and received With grace the kick I gave him. He had grown To be the tail of a portentous firm Of city lawyers: managed, as he said, The matter of collections; and had made In his small way--to use his modest phrase, Truthful as modest--quite a pretty plum. He was o'erjoyed to see me in the town: Hoped I would call upon him at his den: If I had any business in his line, Would do it for me promptly; as for price, No need to talk of that between two friends! But these, and all--the meanest and the best-- Were hard at work. They always questioned me Before we parted, touching my pursuits; And though they questioned kindly, I grew sore Under the repetition, and ashamed To iterate my answer, till I burned To do some work, so lifted into fame, That shame should be to him whose ignorance Compelled a question. Simplest foresters Have learned the trick of woodland broods, that fly In radiant divergence from the flash Of death and danger, and, when all is still, Steal back to where their fellows bit the dust For rendezvous. And thus society Follows the brutal instinct. When the friends, Who from her father's ruin fled amain, Found out my wife, and learned that it was safe To gather back to the old feeding-ground, They came. Her old home had become my own And they were all delighted. It was sweet To have her back again; and it was sad To know that those who once were happy there, Dispensing happiness, could come no more. It had its modicum of earnestness,-- This talk of theirs--and she received it all With hearty courtesy, and yielded it The unction of her charity, so far That it was smooth and redolent to her. The difference--the world-wide difference-- Between my wife and them was obvious; But she was generous through nature's gift I fancied--could not well be otherwise; Although their fawning filled me with disgust. Oh! fool and blind! not to perceive the Christ That shone and spoke in her!