Works

The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box
(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)
Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all
To understand, when I am gone," he muttered....

That all from Adam first began,
None but ungodly Whiston doubts,
And that his son and his son's son
Were all but ploughmen, clowns, and louts.

Each when his rustic pains began...

I have seen her in gowns the brightest,
Of azure, green, and red,
And in the simplest, whitest,
Muslined from heel to head;
I have watched her walking, riding,
Shade-flecked by a leafy tree,...

We started from the Valley Pride,
And Farnham way we went.
We waited at the cover-side,
But never found a scent.
Then we tried the withy beds
Which grow by Frensham town,...

There's a line of rails on an upland green
With a good take-off and a landing sound,
Six fences grim as were ever seen,
And it's there I would be with fox and hound.
Oh, that was a country free and fair...

Neglected now is the old guitar
And moldering into decay;
Fretted with many a rift and scar
That the dull dust hides away,
While the spider spins a silver star
In its silent lips to-day.
...

I.

O don't you remember those days so divine,
Around which the heart-strings all tenderly twine,
When with sapling pole and a painted cork
We fished up and down the old Hanging Fork--...

The Old Hay-mow's the place to play
Fer boys, when it's a rainy day!
I good-'eal ruther be up there
Than down in town, er anywhere!

When I play in our stable-loft,...

On the barren hillside lone he sat;
On his head he wore a tattered hat;
In his hand he bore a crooked staff;
Never heard I laughter like his laugh,
On the barren hillside, thistle-hoar.
...

An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree;
A wild wood, a wild brook they will not let me be:
In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

Down deep in my heart's core I hear them and my eyes...

This is "The old Home by the Mill" - far we still call it so,
Although the old mill, roof and sill, is all gone long ago.
The old home, though, and old folks, and the old spring, and a few...

Such was the Child-World of the long-ago -
The little world these children used to know: -
Johnty, the oldest, and the best, perhaps,
Of the five happy little Hoosier chaps...

'Tis an old deserted homestead
On the outskirts of the town,
Where the roof is all moss-covered,
And the walls are tumbling down;
But around that little cottage
Do my brightest mem'ries cling,...

Jest as atween the awk'ard lines a hand we love has penn'd
Appears a meanin' hid from other eyes,
So, in your simple, homespun art, old honest Yankee friend,
A power o' tearful, sweet seggestion lies....

The moon's a peck of corn. It lies
Heaped up for me to eat.
I wish that I might climb the path
And taste that supper sweet.

Men feed me straw and scanty grain
And beat me till I'm sore....

A very, very old house I know-
And ever so many people go,
Past the small lodge, forlorn and still,
Under the heavy branches, till
Comes the blank wall, and there's the door....

Mossy gray stands the House, four-square to the wind,
Embosomed in the hills. The garden old
Of yew and box and fishpond speaks her mind,
Sweet-ordered, quaint, recluse, fold within fold...

Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road,
An old house stands: around its doors the dense
Blue iron-weeds grow high;
The chipmunks make a highway of its fence;
And on its sunken flagstones slug and toad...

Is it only twelve mont' I play de fool,
You're sure it 'scorrec' , ma dear?
I 'm glad for hearin' you spik dat way
For I t'ink it was twenty year,
Since leffin' de leetle ole house below,...

Five rotten gables look upon
Wan rotting roses and rank weeds,
Old iron gates on posts of stone,
Dim dingles where the vermin breeds.
Five rotten gables black appear
Above bleak yews and cedars sad,...