Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/86

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She looked so young and fresh and fair,
She blushed with such a charming bloom,
It did one good to see her there,
And brightened all things in the room.

XIII.

She did not sit hours stark and dumb

As pale as moonshine by the lamp;
To lie in bed when day was come,
And leave us curtained chill and damp.
She slept away the dreary dark,
And rose to greet the pleasant morn;
And sang as gaily as a lark
While busy as the flies sun-born.

XIV.

And how she loved us every one;

And dusted this and mended that,
With trills and laughs and freaks of fun,
And tender scoldings in her chat!
And then her bird, that sang as shrill
As she sang sweet; her darling flowers
That grew there in the window-sill,
Where she would sit at work for hours.