Page:Pebbles and Shells (Hawkes collection).djvu/172

Of sad neglect and summer suns and rains
That make it old and fill its joints with pains.

Here is the ancient fire-place, broad and tall,
How cheerful was its firelight on the wall;
Here oft I sat on stormy winter nights
And watched the restless ever-changing lights
Upon the logs, or traced a tiny spark
Far up the dingy flue into the dark;
'Twas by this stone that grandma used to sit
Upon those winter eves and drowse and knit,
While I would watch the stocking as it grew
And count the stitches while the needles flew,
And seated by the cosy kitchen hearth
We passed the hours in jest and merry laugh
That mocked the fury of the howling storm—
Then came the thought, how dear a place is home.

Some prudent squirrel leaves his winter store
Upon the landing of my chamber door,
And rude rats scamper o'er the floor and hide
Behind the dingy walls that were my pride;
For vermin comes to gloat o'er man's decay,
And haunt his home when he has passed away.
But through the broken window dark with mold
I see the dreamy hills I knew of old;
And now it seemeth like a few short hours
Since first I scaled those silent mountain towers.—

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