Drifting Away: A Fragment

They drift away. Ah, God! they drift for ever.
I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea,
Like some old battered buoy upon a roaring river,
Round whom the tide-waifs hang - then drift to sea.

I watch them drift - the old familiar faces,
Who fished and rode with me, by stream and wold,
Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places,
And, ah! the land is rank with churchyard mold.

I watch them drift - the youthful aspirations,
Shores, landmarks, beacons, drift alike.
. . . . .
I watch them drift - the poets and the statesmen;
The very streams run upward from the sea.
    . . . . . .
    Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven
    Still fades to night, still blazes into day.
    . . . . .
    Ah, God!    My God!    Thou wilt not drift away

November 1867.

Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley was an English writer, historian, and clergyman born on June 12, 1819, in Holne, Devon. He was associated with the Christian Socialist movement and was a friend of prominent figures such as Charles Darwin. Kingsley is best known for his historical novels, including 'Westward Ho!' and 'Hypatia,' as well as his children's book 'The Water-Babies.' His works often explore social issues and aim to contribute to societal reform. Kingsley died on January 23, 1875, in Eversley, Hampshire.

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English

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A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
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The Two Rivers

I

Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;
    So slowly that no human eye hath power
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Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground;
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    The frontier town and citadel of night!
    The watershed of Time, from which the streams
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    One to the land of promise and of light,
    One to the land of darkness and of dreams!

II

O River of Yesterday, with current swift
    Through chasms descending, and soon lost to sight,

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Burning Drift-Wood

Before my drift-wood fire I sit,
And see, with every waif I burn,
Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.
O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?
Did I not watch from them the light
Of sunset on my towers in Spain,
And see, far off, uploom in sight
The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?

Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's vales of song and spring,
And did I pass, with grazing keel,
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?

Have I not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,
The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla Khan?

Did land winds blow from jas...

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Old And New: A Parable

See how the autumn leaves float by decaying,
Down the wild swirls of the rain-swollen stream.
So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again;
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.

Nay! see the spring-blossoms steal forth a-maying,
Clothing with tender hues orchard and glen;
So, though old forms pass by, ne'er shall their spirit die,
Look!    England's bare boughs show green leaf again.

Eversley, 1848.

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The River Path

No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;

No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the waters hem.

The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;

For, from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.

But on the rivers farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified,

A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom
With them the sunsets rosy bloom;

While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.

From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,

Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one....

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