Poems (Howard)/The Old-Fashioned House

by Hattie Howard

The Old-fashioned House.

Of all the tender and comforting things
That now and then sweet memory brings,
There's nothing dearer that love recalls
Than the old-fashioned house with its white-washed walls.

Not a mansion to-day, though a marvel of art,
Can ever usurp its place in my heart;
For there my earliest prayers were said,
And I slept at night in a trundle bed.

'Neath coverlids reaching from feet to chin,
By a mother's hand tucked gently in,
And a good-night kiss on my tired brow—
Oh, earth holds no such blessing now!

A garden was fragrant in flower beds
Where marigolds lifted their velvet heads,
And warmed by sunshine, refreshed by dew,
The bachelor-button and touch-me -not grew.

In a river, that curved like a shepherd's crook,
We fished for minnows with bent pin hook;
Or with little bare feet oft waded through,
And bravely "paddled our own canoe."

'Twas a home of welcome no one could doubt,
Whose latch-string hung invitingly out,
And many a stranger supped at its board
While blazing logs in the" chimney roared.

O this is an age of reform and change!
And things aesthetic, modern, and strange—
Improvements that savor of silver and gold
Are superseding the cherished and old.

But I turn from palaces, built for show,
With mansard roofs, and stories below
Of frescoed, kalsomined, dadoed halls,
To the old-fashioned house with its white-washed walls.