Page:Collected poems vol 2 de la mare.djvu/49

 Into the garden sweet with peas
 * He put his wooden shoe,

And bending back the apple trees
 * Crept covetously through;

Then, stooping, with a gloating eye
 * Stared through the lattice small,

And spied two children which did lie
 * Asleep, against the wall.

Into their dreams no shadow fell
 * Of his disastrous thumb

Groping discreet, and gradual,
 * Across the quiet room.

But scarce his nail had scraped the cot
 * Wherein these children lay,

As if his malice were forgot,
 * It suddenly did stay.

For faintly in the ingle-nook
 * He heard a cradle-song,

That rose into his thoughts and woke
 * Terror them among.

For she who in the kitchen sat
 * Darning by the fire,

Guileless of what he would be at,
 * Sang sweet as wind or wire: —