Back up the lane, and past the orchard, and through the bars
Into the night pasture.
IV
There in the twilight I see him stand:
He listens to the sounds of the field and the forest,
On his brow strikes the cool mountain air;
Hard is the old man's life and full indeed of sorrow—
But now, for a moment, respite from labor, in the pause 'twixt day and night!
Perhaps to his heart comes a sense of the beauty that fills all this exquisite valley—
A sense of peace and of rest; a thought of the long and toilless night that comes to all,
As he leans on the bars and listens, and hears the deep-breathed cows, and the scattered sound of the bells
In the night pasture.
A LETTER FROM THE FARM
Tell you the news
From Four-Brooks Farm?
Well,
But there is news to tell,
As long as my arm!
"What! a new she-calf born
To this world forlorn?"
Few things are finer
Than a fine heifer-calf,
And most things are minor;
But 't is better by half
The news that I've got now!
