Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/25

Rh  And I stamp and I claw at the air,
 * And rave at myself for a spell;

For it isn't the girl, after all,
 * That I met at the Newport hotel.

Puck.

THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW. stands in a sunny meadow,
 * The house so mossy and brown,

With its cumbrous old stone chimneys,
 * And the gray roof sloping down.

The trees fold their green arms round it,—
 * The trees a century old;

And the winds go chanting through them,
 * And the sunbeams drop their gold.

The cowslips spring in the marshes,
 * The roses bloom on the hill,

And beside the brook in the pasture
 * The herds go feeding at will.

Within, in the wide old kitchen
 * The old folks sit in the sun

That creeps through the sheltering woodbine
 * Till the day is almost done.

Their children have gone and left them;
 * They sit in the sun alone,

And the old wife's ears are failing
 * As she harks to the well-known tone

That won her heart in her girlhood,
 * That has soothed her in many a care,

And praises her now for the brightness
 * Her old face used to wear.

She thinks again of her bridal,—
 * How, dressed in her robe of white,

She stood by her gay young lover
 * In the morning's rosy light.