Page:The Farmer's Bride (New Edition).djvu/20

 It is not only the little boys Who have hardly got away from toys, But I, who am seventeen next year, Some nights, in bed, have grown cold to hear That lonely passion of the rain Which makes you think of being dead, And of somewhere living to lay your head As if you were a child again, Crying for one thing, known and near Your empty heart, to still the hunger and the fear That pelts and beats with it against the pane.

But I remember smiling too At all the sun's soft tricks and those Autumn dreads In winter time, when the grey light broke slowly through The frosted window-lace to drag us shivering from our beds. And when at dusk the singing wind swung down Straight from the stars to the dark country roads Beyond the twinkling town, Striking the leafless poplar boughs as he went by, Like some poor, stray dog by the wayside lying dead, We left behind us the old world of dread, I and the wind as we strode whistling on under the Winter sky.

And then in Spring for three days came the Fair Just as the planes were starting into bud Above the caravans: you saw the dancing bear Pass on his chain; and heard the jingle and the thud. Only four days ago They let you out of this dull show To slither down the montagne russe and chaff the man à la tête de veau— Hit, slick, the bull's eye at the tir, Spin round and round till your head went queer On the ''porcs-roulants. Oh! là là! la fête!'' Va pour du vin, et le tête-a-tête With the girl who sugars the ''quafres! Pauvrette,'' How thin she was; but she smiled, you bet,