The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1871-09-08
From the Best of Good Company.l =.
DICKENS AT GAD'S HILL.
BY CHARLES KENT,

One summers day-ah, saddest eighth o
My brooding heart, my very soul descrie
Around a chalet, In grove at noon. ~
Dream children from the fiowerir5S eartI
arise. -
So hushed aike death . the calm, sequcster
One notes with eye, not ear, the nau
Thro' suniit branches. nickering gold au'
About yon Swiss roof nesting mid tn
Like faithful wanderers seen returning
home,
Like Hg Hmagnets trembling truthful to th'
To this one spot ON all the earth they roam
Again they throng round him who callet
them forth. --.-....-f .-
No shadowy semblance theirs OF human
| life,
Ideal shapes of visionary birth.
They breathe, they move with vital force
Than fieeting, fieshly forms that people
earth. -.--- ~. rF4y
the Angel-ChiId, the Guardian Guide O.
With soul as pure as all the tears we shed
When swimming eyes first read on blotted
Dear, gentle, patient. noble Nell was
The fading boy, the blossom nipped in bud
Whose infant grace had Oft the quaintest
Who questioned voices in the ocean flood,
Whose looks OF love were sad as tones OF
prayer. -r ,#.-.r
Till passed. like sigh in sleep, his parting
And DER the couch where lay the gentle
Nought stirred above "thc old, old fashion,
Nought save "the golden ripple on the
wall"
The sweet Child-wife, the darling of a heart,
Whose tenderest chords that solemn eve
When Doras doom was told with speechless
art,
"That mute appeal, that finger raised to
heaven" Il
The little cripple with his active crutch,
At thought of whom the mothers eye
Signing, as fell the black work from her
touch,
1t was "the color-Ah, poor Tiny Tim!"
The stripping frail, who dying with kiss,
A child at heart, a man but TO the sight
Poor Dick began the world again-not this,
All no, mot this-the world that sets this
right" ....-.,
And orphan Johnny, his lost home afar.
An infant waif on awful billows hurl'd,
No mother clinging to 1t, floats. frail spar,
Ger that dark sea that rolls around all
the world"
Around the sunlit chalet where, within,
Dreams the great Dreamer meath the
shadOwing trees,
From towering earth, fresh dews of love to
win
Dream-children rise in lovely forms like
these.
No spectral shades for gllmpses of the moon,
But radient shapes in calm ofsummer day,
They come unbidder to his haunts, at noon.
Down the bright path they went-to point
the way;
These haunts the aptest symbols of q life
That loved the plesaunce that winter ne'er
bereaveS;
or Yerdure, in those grand old cedars rife,
Crowned with q lasting glory of Green
Leaves.
And yonder, basking in the golden air,
Luring his thoughts where'er his glance
CInctured by blossoms In q garden fair,
The dear familiar roof-beams OF his home.
Between that home and this secluded haunt
Flows the broad highway, symbol here
again
That alien to mis- hearth no tread cl want
Or toll was held, or ever passed in vain.
o Friend, Brother! dearer TO my heart
Than ev'n thy loving friendship could dis
Thy thoughts, thy dreams were of our live,
part, -,
Thy genius love. not merely fame, could
earn.
Affection, admiration, honor, praise,
Innocent laughter and ennoblinS tears,
Are thine by right, not through mere length
OF days,
Thro' loftier life, in never ending years.