times they are as black as ink, an' other times they're white--
But the color ain't no difference when you're seein' things at night._

In all that Field wrote, whether in prose or rhyme, for the Denver
Tribune nothing contributed to his literary reputation or gave promise
of the place in American letters he was to attain, save one little bit
of fugitive verse, which was for years to justify its title of "The
Wanderer." It contains one of the prettiest, tenderest, most vitally
poetic ideas that ever occurred to Eugene Field. And yet he deliberately
disclaimed it in the moment of its conception and laid it, like a
little foundling, at the door of Madame Modjeska. The expatriation of
the Polish actress, between whom and Field there existed a singularly
warm and enduring friendship, formed the basis for the allegory of the
shell on the mountain, and doubtless suggested to him the humor, if not
the sentiment, of attributing the poem to her and writing it in the
first person. The circumstances of its publication justify its
reproduction here, although I suppose it is one of the most familiar
of Field's poems. I copy it from his manuscript:

_THE WANDERER

Upon a mountain height, far from the sea,
I found a shell,
And to my listening ear this lonely thing
Ever a song of ocean seem'd to sing--
Ever a tale of ocean seem'd to tell.

How came the shell upon the mountain height?
Ah, who can say
Whether there dropped by some too careless hand--
Whether there cast when oceans swept the land,
Ere the Eternal had ordained the day?

Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep,
One song it sang;
Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide,
Sang of the restless sea, profound and wide--
Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.

And as the shell upon the mountain height
Sang of the sea,
So do I ever, leagues and leagues away--
So do I ever, wandering where I may,
Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee!_

I have seen it stated that Madame Modjeska regarded the liberty taken
with her name in this connection with feelings of displeasure, and
Hamlin Garland has reported a conversation with Field, during the
summer of 1893, when the latter, speaking of his work in Denver, and of
"The Tribune Primer" as the most conspicuous thing he did there, said:
"The other thing which rose above the level of my ordinary work was a
bit of verse, 'The Wanderer,' which I credi