Out of the old house, Nancy—moved up into the new;
All the hurry and worry is just as good as through.
Only a bounden duty remains for you and I—
And that ’s to stand on the doorstep here, and bid the old house good-by.
What a shell we ’ve lived in, these nineteen or twenty years!
Wonder it had n’t smashed in, and tumbled about our ears;
Wonder...
They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
Why is it then we stray
Around that sunken...
The Young LOVERS
I SAW them kissing in the shade and knew the sum of all my lore:
God gave them Youth, God gave them Love, and even God can give no more.
I know not from the fading Rose with parted lips what whisper went.
I only know the Nightingale sang once again his old lament.
YOUTH AND AGE
A NIGHTINGALE once lost his voice from too much...
No baby in the house, I know,
’T is far too nice and clean.
No toys, by careless fingers strewn,
Upon the floors are seen.
No finger-marks are on the panes,
No scratches on the chairs;
No wooden men set up in rows,
Or marshalled off in pairs;
No little stockings to be darned,
All ragged at the toes;
No...
Out of the old house, Nancy—moved up into the new;
All the hurry and worry is just as good as through.
Only a bounden duty remains for you and I—
And that ’s to stand on the doorstep here, and bid the old house good-bye.
What a shell we ’ve lived in, these nineteen or twenty years!
Wonder it hadn’t smashed in, and tumbled about our ears;
Wonder...
Oh, the auld house, the auld house,—
What though the rooms were wee?
Oh! kind hearts were dwelling there,
And bairnies fu’ o’ glee;
The wild rose and the jessamine
Still hang upon the wa’:
How mony cherished memories
Do they, sweet flowers, reca’!
Oh, the auld laird, the auld laird,
Sae canty, kind, and crouse...
A Naked house, a naked moor,
A shivering pool before the door,
A garden bare of flowers and fruit,
And poplars at the garden foot;
Such is the place that I live in,
Bleak without and bare within.
Yet shall your ragged moors receive
The incomparable pomp of eve,
And the cold glories of the dawn
Behind your shivering trees...
And are ye sure the news is true?
And are ye sure he ’s weel?
Is this a time to think of wark?
Ye jauds, fling by your wheel.
Is this a time to think of wark,
When Colin ’s at the door?
Gie me my cloak! I ’ll to the quay
And see him come ashore.
For there ’s nae luck about the house,
There ’s nae luck ava;...
Over the hill to the poor-house I ’m trudgin’ my weary way—
I, a woman of seventy, and only a trifle gray—
I, who am smart an’ chipper, for all the years I ’ve told,
As many another woman that ’s only half as old.
Over the hill to the poor-house—I can’t quite make it clear!
Over the hill to the poor-house—it seems so horrid queer!
Many a step I...
E’en such is time; that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
