 | Lyrical Poems |  |
167
THE COTTAGE HOME
Clothed in a cloud of green woodbine,
Its feet with the red rose bound,
It stands like a fairy creature
On its own dear fairy ground:
'Neath eave-brow'd casements the martin
With a cry dips into his nest:
The turf breathes white from the gable,
And all breathes sweetness and rest:—
But they clear the cottages off on this estate;
And for picturesqueness without, within there is gloom;
For it is not sweet when four boys and three girls and the parents
Must herd in a single room.
Its feet with the red rose bound,
It stands like a fairy creature
On its own dear fairy ground:
'Neath eave-brow'd casements the martin
With a cry dips into his nest:
The turf breathes white from the gable,
And all breathes sweetness and rest:—
But they clear the cottages off on this estate;
And for picturesqueness without, within there is gloom;
For it is not sweet when four boys and three girls and the parents
Must herd in a single room.
Girt with a fringe of fair forest
As a cup with vine-leaves bound,
The valley lies like a fragment
Of Paradise lost and found:—
Safe from the talons of tempest,
From all that can ravage and blot,
It smiles to its smiling heaven
In the peace that the world knows not.
—But they clear the cottages off on this estate;
And from the choke and heat of the fever-smit room,
Where nine are stabled and one is groaning in shame,
There rises a reek of gloom.
As a cup with vine-leaves bound,
The valley lies like a fragment
Of Paradise lost and found:—
168
From all that can ravage and blot,
It smiles to its smiling heaven
In the peace that the world knows not.
—But they clear the cottages off on this estate;
And from the choke and heat of the fever-smit room,
Where nine are stabled and one is groaning in shame,
There rises a reek of gloom.
O blot unatoned-for by beauty!
Fair face,—and Death laughing below!
O dumb endurance of lifetimes,
O dim degradation and woe!
In the breast of the rose is a canker,
A tear in the heart of the dew,
Where Nature has all her sweetness,
And man is a blur on the view!
For they clear the cottages off on this estate:
And the ragged peak of the window-dismantled room,
As an eyeless skull where the vermin burrow and shriek,
Stares now like a sign of doom.
Fair face,—and Death laughing below!
O dumb endurance of lifetimes,
O dim degradation and woe!
In the breast of the rose is a canker,
A tear in the heart of the dew,
Where Nature has all her sweetness,
And man is a blur on the view!
For they clear the cottages off on this estate:
And the ragged peak of the window-dismantled room,
As an eyeless skull where the vermin burrow and shriek,
Stares now like a sign of doom.
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