THE skylarks are far behind that sang over the
down;
I can hear no more those suburb nightingales;
Thrushes and blackbirds sing in the gardens of the
town
In vain: the noise of man, beast, and machine
prevails.
But the call of children in the unfamiliar streets
That echo with a familiar twilight echoing,
Sweet as the voice of nightingale or lark, completes
A magic of strange welcome, so that I seem a king
Among man, beast, machine, bird, child, and the
ghost
That in the echo lives and with the echo dies.
The friendless town is friendly; homeless, I
not lost;
Though I know none of these doors, and meet but
strangers' eyes.
Never again, perhaps, after to-morrow, shall
I see these homely streets, these church windows
alight,
Not a man or woman or child among them all:
But it is All Friends' Night, a traveller's good
night.