 | The poet, the fool and the faeries |  |
138
THE OLD PLACE
Sassafras grows at its gate, and veins
Of lichen mottle its stones with stains;
And there, where its porch hangs low in view,
High on its beams the swallows brood:
Its garden blossoms, all poppy strewed,
With oldtime flowers of every hue.
Of lichen mottle its stones with stains;
And there, where its porch hangs low in view,
High on its beams the swallows brood:
Its garden blossoms, all poppy strewed,
With oldtime flowers of every hue.
The old spring calls where the hollow drips
And still invites with its mossy lips,
Lullabyed to by the sleepy pines,
Within whose whisper the woodchuck steals,
And along whose twilight the fox reveals
An instant's glimmer when noonday shines.
And still invites with its mossy lips,
Lullabyed to by the sleepy pines,
Within whose whisper the woodchuck steals,
And along whose twilight the fox reveals
An instant's glimmer when noonday shines.
It is a place that I dream of oft:
I see the light in its log-built loft;
The wasps that plaster their cells of clay;
The weaving spider; and, bubble-blue,
The sky, that sweeps with its swallow through
Its open window, high-heaped with hay.
I see the light in its log-built loft;
The wasps that plaster their cells of clay;
The weaving spider; and, bubble-blue,
The sky, that sweeps with its swallow through
Its open window, high-heaped with hay.
The martins circle its roof in flocks,
And twitter its chimneyed martin-box;
The redbird builds in the trumpet-vine,
A living crimson that flecks the trees,
That shade the shed where the borer-bees
Whine at their holes in the planks of pine.
And twitter its chimneyed martin-box;
The redbird builds in the trumpet-vine,
139
That shade the shed where the borer-bees
Whine at their holes in the planks of pine.
I dream of the way that takes me where
The creek in the woods has made a stair,
A rock-stair, roofed with the boughs of beech;
And I see the pool where the minnow shines,
And dragonflies flash their jewelled lines,
And pale pond-lilies loll just in reach.
The creek in the woods has made a stair,
A rock-stair, roofed with the boughs of beech;
And I see the pool where the minnow shines,
And dragonflies flash their jewelled lines,
And pale pond-lilies loll just in reach.
And barefoot there, in torn straw-hat,
His dog beside him, where oft he sat,
I see a boy in the glimmering day
Dropping an idle line: may be
Floating a boat of the bark of a tree—
A boy, who has never gone away.
His dog beside him, where oft he sat,
I see a boy in the glimmering day
Dropping an idle line: may be
Floating a boat of the bark of a tree—
A boy, who has never gone away.
The boy, who haunts that oldtime place,
With his sun-tanned feet and freckled face;
The lad, who follows at dusk the cows,
As oft and oft in the days gone by;
The boy, brown-haired, who once was I,
Who lives in dreams of that oldtime house.
With his sun-tanned feet and freckled face;
The lad, who follows at dusk the cows,
As oft and oft in the days gone by;
The boy, brown-haired, who once was I,
Who lives in dreams of that oldtime house.
| The poet, the fool and the faeries | |