Chapter VI: (Sir Isaac Newton writes to Mrs. Vincent at Woolthorpe.)

Your letter, on my eightieth birthday, wakes Memories, like violets, in this London gloom. You have never failed, for more than three-score years To send these annual greetings from the haunts Where you and I were boy and girl together. A day must come-it cannot now be far-- When I shall have no power to thank you for them, So let me tell you now that, all my life, They have come to me with healing in their wings Like birds from home, birds from the happy woods Above the Witham, where you walked with me When you and I were young. Do you remember Old Barley--how he tried to teach us drawing? He found some promise, I believe, in you, But quite despaired of me. I treasure all Those little sketches that you sent to me Each Christmas, carrying each some glimpse of home. There's one I love that shows the narrow lane Behind the schoolhouse, where I had that bout Of schoolboy fisticuffs. I have never known More pleasure, I believe, than when I beat That black-haired bully and won, for my reward, Those April smiles from you. I see you still Standing among the fox-gloves in the hedge; And just behind you, in the field, I know There was a patch of aromatic flowers,-- Rest-harrow, was it? Yes; their tangled roots Pluck at the harrow; halt the sharp harrow of thought, Even in old age. I never breathe their scent But I am back in boyhood, dreaming there Over some book, among the diligent bees, Until you join me, and we dream together. They called me lazy, then. Oddly enough It was that fight that stirred my mind to beat My bully at his books, and head the school; Blind rivalry, at first. By such fond tricks The invisible Power that shapes us--not ourselves-- Punishes, teaches, leads us gently on Like children, all our lives, until we grasp A sudden meaning and are born, through death Into full knowledge that our Guide was Love. Another picture shows those woods of ours, Around whose warm dark edges in the spring Primroses, knots of living sunlight, woke; And, always, you, their radiant shepherdess From Elfland, lead them rambling back for me, The dew still clinging to their golden fleece, Through these grey memory-mists. Another shows My old sun-dial. You say that it is known As "Isaac's dial" still. I took great pains To set it rightly. If it has not shifted 'Twill mark the time long after I am gone; Not like those curious water-clocks I made. Do you remember? They worked well at first; But the least particles in the water clogged The holes through which it dripped; and so, one day, We two came home so late that we were sent Supperless to our beds; and suffered much From the world's harshness, as we thought it then. Would God that we might taste that harshness now.

I cannot send you what you've sent to me; And so I wish you'll never thank me more For those poor gifts I have sent from year to year. I send another, and hope that you can use it To buy yourself those comforts which you need This Christmas-time. How strange it is to wake And find that half a century has gone by, With all our endless youth. They talk to me Of my discoveries, prate of undying fame Too late to help me. Anything I achieved Was done through work and patience; and the men Who sought quick roads to glory for themselves Were capable of neither. So I won Their hatred, and it often hampered me, Because it vexed my mind. This world of ours Would give me all, now I have ceased to want it; For I sit here, alone, a sad old man, Sipping his orange-water, nodding to sleep, Not caring any more for aught they say, Not caring any more for praise or blame; But dreaming-things we dreamed of, long ago, In childhood. You and I had laughed away That boy and girl affair. We were too poor For anything but laughter. I am old; And you, twice wedded and twice widowed, still Retain, through all your nearer joys and griefs, The old affection. Vaguely our blind old hands Grope for each other in this growing dark And deepening loneliness,--to say "good-bye." Would that my words could tell you all my heart; But even my words grow old. Perhaps these lines, Written not long ago, may tell you more. I have no skill in verse, despite the praise Your kindness gave me, once; but since I wrote Thinking of you, among the woods of home, My heart was in them. Let them turn to yours:

_Give me, for friends, my own true folk
Who kept the very word they spoke;
Whose quiet prayers, from day to day,
Have brought the heavens about my way.

Not those whose intellectual pride
Would quench the only lights that guide;
Confuse the lines 'twixt good and ill
Then throne their own capricious will;

Not those whose eyes in mockery scan
The simpler hopes and dreams of man;
Not those keen wits, so quick to hurt,
So swift to trip you in the dirt.

Not those who'd pluck your mystery out,
Yet never saw your last redoubt;
Whose cleverness would kill the song
Dead at your heart, then prove you wrong.

Give me those eyes I used to know
Where thoughts like angels come and go;
--Not glittering eyes, nor dimmed by books,
But eyes through which the deep soul looks.

Give me the quiet hands and face
That never strove for fame and place;
The soul whose love, so many a day
Has brought the heavens about my way._