Instead of warlike command , or regal or religious sway , he was to rule over the village children ! And now the visionary Maid had faded from his fancy , and in her place he saw the playmate of his childhood ! Would all , who cherish such wild wishes , but look around them , they would oftenest find their sphere of duty , of prosperity , and happiness within those precincts , and in that station where Providence itself has cast their lot . Methinks , for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the current of life , than to plunge into its tumultuous waves , no undesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land . In youth , perhaps , it is good for the observer to run about the earth , to leave the track of his footsteps far and wide , -- to mingle himself with the action of numberless vicissitudes , -- and , finally , in some calm solitude , to feed a musing spirit on all that lie has seen and felt . But there are natures too indolent , or too sensitive , to endure the dust , the sunshine , or the rain , the turmoil of moral and physical elements , to which all the wayfarers of the world expose themselves . For such a mail , how pleasant a miracle , could life be made to roll its variegated length by the threshold of his own hermitage , and the great globe , as it were , perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes before his eyes without whirling him onward in its course . If any mortal be favored with a lot analogous to this , it is the toll-gatherer . So , at least , have I often fancied , while lounging on a bench at the door of a small square edifice , which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a long bridge . Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea ; while above , like the life-blood through a great artery , the travel of the north and east is continually throbbing . Sitting on the aforesaid bench , I amuse myself with a conception , illustrated by numerous pencil-sketches in the air , of the toll-gatherer 's day . In the morning -- dim , gray , dewy summer 's morn the distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend 's slumbers , creaking more and more harshly through the midst of his dream , and gradually replacing it with realities . Hardly conscious of the change from sleep to wakefulness , he finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay . The timbers groan beneath the slow-revolving wheels ; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen , and , peering from the summit of the hay , by the glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house , is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade , who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long . The toll is paid , -- creak , creak , again go the wheels , and the huge haymow vanishes into the morning mist . As yet , nature is but half awake , and familiar objects appear visionary . But yonder , dashing from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused clatter of hoofs , comes the never-tiring mail , which has hurried onward at the same headlong , restless rate , all through the quiet night . The bridge resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on without a pause , merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy passengers , who now bestir their torpid limbs , and snuff a cordial in the briny air . The morn breathes upon them and blushes , and they forget how wearily the darkness toiled away . And behold now the fervid day , in his bright chariot , glittering aslant over the waves , nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams on the toll-gatherer 's little hermitage .
The old man looks eastward , and -LRB- for he is a moralizer -RRB- frames a simile XXXXX the stage coach and the sun .
As If at by for from in of on over