Eye-Memory
Major
Robert Calder
Campbell
Campbell, (Robert) Calder
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Fralick
Kaitlyn
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Poem signed Calder Campbell.
(AC)
Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal
2
13
330
272
When the present all around me
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Eye-Memory
.
By Calder Campbell
.
When the present all around me
Forms a picture of fair things,
That awake bright thoughts within me—
Fairy shapes and seraph wings—
Then I quench my thirst at fountains,
Fountains of eternal springs.
Fancy sheds o’er all the sunshine
That is bred of pleasant thoughts ;
And with pulse that beats unfevered,
Fancy every object notes,
Till each individual aspect
In a sea of beauty floats.
Then the present is before me,
Standing in its field of power,
Till at last the past steals o’er me
As from clouds the falling shower,
While its memories restore me
To another scene and hour.
One brief glimpse at things familiar
To the visions of our youth—
One quaint view of objects common
To our early sense of truth—
One glance at the alien corn-fields
Bringeth back our boyhood’s ruth !
Oh it is a mystic wonder
This same memory of the eye,
That with no loud sound of thunder
Pierceth our humanity,
But with force that keeps time under
Rouseth up old sympathy !
One small flower, whose shape and colour
Noteless to all others is,
Brings a vivid recollection
Of some bygone vale or bliss :
Here a bier, and there a bridal—
There a tear, and here a kiss !
Even upon yon wall the shadow,
As it falleth, calls to mind
Shades of woods where I, a truant,
On the thick green boughs could find
Joys that had no taste of sorrow
With their fruitage intertwined.
Often, as we linger idly
O’er new paths, we come upon
Something—field, or hill, or streamlet,
Windmill, glittering in the sun—
That we knew by frequent visits
Long ago, ere youth was gone.
Yet these scenes are strangers to us,
Though their forms are old and dear ;
And Eye-Memory, through and through us,
Runneth like some liquid clear
That is poured from jewelled chalice
By a spirit hovering near.
It were well if recollections
Of the past were always drawn
From the eyes, whose retrospections
Have no tempest in their dawn :
Happy he whose calm reflections
Pass not the paternal lawn !
Happier still if our Eye-Memory,
After travelling far, bring home
Sweet experiences—telling
Of the sadness and the gloom
We have aided in dispelling
From some fainting neighbour’s room !