Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/316

288 Back up the lane, and past the orchard, and through the bars

Into the night pasture.

IV

There in the twilight I see him stand:

He listens to the sounds of the field and the forest,

On his brow strikes the cool mountain air;

Hard is the old man's life and full indeed of sorrow—

But now, for a moment, respite from labor, in the pause 'twixt day and night!

Perhaps to his heart comes a sense of the beauty that fills all this exquisite valley—

A sense of peace and of rest; a thought of the long and toilless night that comes to all,

As he leans on the bars and listens, and hears the deep-breathed cows, and the scattered sound of the bells

In the night pasture.

A LETTER FROM THE FARM

you the news

From Four-Brooks Farm?

Well,

But there is news to tell,

As long as my arm!

What! a new she-calf born

To this world forlorn?"

Few things are finer

Than a fine heifer-calf,

And most things are minor;

But 't is better by half

The news that I've got now!

Such a wonderful lot now