Reflections on a peaceful time.

I seems a long time ago now – in a different “age”; in a different country and certainly in a different culture. But in reality it was only about fifty years ago.

I was attending Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa, as a student – a few years older that the teenagers around me, but still only in my early twenties. I soon found a comfortable place to reflect and be at peace  – which is something I have always found, somewhere, as I rightly or wrongly consider myself to be of a relatively solitary disposition, and have never been afraid of my own company. My peaceful place was a viewpoint on a hill behind the University campus. I have forgotten the name of the hill but it provided a wonderful view of Grahamstown and the hills and mountains in the far distance.

My preferred time for a “visit” was in the evening just before sunset. I would sit there watching as the twilight faded into darkness and the streetlights suddenly flicking on brightly. I also witnessed the lights in homes suddenly turn on as people returned from their work – giving a strangely domestic feel to the scene as it unfolded before me.

Poetry, as those who read my posts will attest, has always given me solace and this scene, as described, always reminded me of the poem “The Day in Done”, by the American, Henry Longfellow. I won’t inflict on you the entire poem but the first verses are what have stayed in my mind when I remember this time of my life. It is also apposite now, I suppose, as I find myself having to contemplate my future and whatever it may hold:-

The day is done, and darkness

Falls from the wings of night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me

That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

And banish the thoughts of day.