Page:The Farmer's Bride (New Edition).djvu/31

 OLL no bell for me, dear Father, dear Mother, Waste no sighs; There are my sisters, there is my little brother Who plays in the place called Paradise, Your children all, your children for ever; But I, so wild, Your disgrace, with the queer brown face, was never, Never, I know, but half your child!

In the garden at play, all day, last summer, Far and away I heard The sweet "tweet-tweet" of a strange new-comer, The dearest, clearest call of a bird. It lived down there in the deep green hollow, My own old home, and the fairies say The word of a bird is a thing to follow, So I was away a night and a day.

One evening, too, by the nursery fire, We snuggled close and sat round so still, When suddenly as the wind blew higher, Something scratched on the window-sill. A pinched brown face peered in—I shivered; No one listened or seemed to see; The arms of it waved and the wings of it quivered, Whoo—I knew it had come for me; Some are as bad as bad can be! All night long they danced in the rain, Round and round in a dripping chain, Threw their caps at the window-pane, Tried to make me scream and shout And fling the bedclothes all about: I meant to stay in bed that night, And if only you had left a light They would never have got me out.