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Twenty Years

Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:

He shipp’d as green-hand boy, and sail’d away, (took some sudden,

vehement notion;)

Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,

While he the globe was circling round and round, — and now returns:

How changed the place — all the old land-marks gone — the parents dead;

(Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good — to settle — has a

well-fill’d purse — no spot will do but this;)

The little boat that scull’d him from the sloop, now held in leash I see,

I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in the sand,

I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass,

I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded — the stout-strong frame,

Dress’d in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:

(Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?)