Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/501

 1850-60.] A. SANDERS PIATT. 485 The busy housewife plies her cares To duties, as they chime To your glad notes that cheerful float, And with her footfalls rhyme. Sing, cricket, sing ; old sympathies Make more than palace halls Of hearth-lit scenes that round me rise And drape the cottage walls With pictures of the past so true : They flow from out thy chimes — As here you cite their wonders o'er, Thou chronicler of times. Thou necromancer of the hearth, As waves thy mystic wand, Its spells invoke the genii of The summer's fairy band, Who in their winter cells do dwell. The nestlings of the earth, And spread their leaves upon the air When spring to love gives bu'th. So tell thy sunny wanderings, Their harvest treasure fling From fields of russet, ripened grain, When chimed the bells you ring At the wedding of the flowers, Unto a cunning fay. Who caught from sunlight colors rare To robe them while they stay. Sing, cricket, sing ; your merry chirps Tell o'er the pleasant days That down the stream of time have gone ; Your song their joy portrays. That gathered round the heart to win The moment's golden dust — Where all Ufe's duties thronging came With faith and love and trust. Sing, cricket, sing ; within my heart Are cells thy song doth thrill, With faces that from memory start. The vacant seats to fill. Around my soul their arms are twined, Like angel wings that lift The heart from sin, with gentle words — Spirits, of hearth-stone gift. Softly sing of chilly showers That damped the genial flame. And took bright fights from off the hearth, That left us all in pain, Though not alone : the absent ones Yet dwell within our heart. And ever as thy song doth ring To fife they warmly start. DAISIE. Could you but fist the waterfall, Its laughing, willful song ! How years now gone its tones recall, While gurgling swift along ! It tells thy name — its words repeat (The past lives o'er in this) The quickening of thy heart's soft beat, When parting from my kiss. Ah, Daisie ! know the birds yet sing. Above the water's flow ; They warble blithely, on the wing. Of times now long ago. While flitting there, sweet Daisie dear, They stole thy heart's song-nest ; To me 'tis left but to revere The birds and streams so bless'd. Another love has won thy heart, But not thy gentle ways : They five within these scenes apart, The theme of other days. Ah, it is mine ; the birds and stream Yet tell it o'er to me ; How sweet it is ! though but a dream Within my heart to be.