SUNDAY AT HOME.
The stillness of the Summer day
Broods o'er the country sweet,
And all things, save the murmuring stream,
Are silent in the heat.
The sunbeams through the green leaves play,
The air is sweet with new-mown hay—
But I am bound at home to stay
Here in Great Gasworks Street.
On the fourth-floor I take the air,
And hear the trains roll by,
And dream of all the visions fair
That o'er the housetops lie;
The meadows where the daisies stray,
The bleating sheep, as white as they,
The breakers and the sparkling spray,
Beneath the smokeless sky.
There's MINNIE in the cradle,
And TOMMY on the floor,
And JOHNNY with a ladle
Is banging on the door;
And, where the household linen dries,
Cross little ANNIE sits and cries
As loud as she can roar.
About the street the children sprawl,
Or on the door-steps sit;
The women, gay with kerchief-shawl,
Engage the men with wit,
Who lounge at ease against the wall,
And meditate and spit.
So through the Summer Sunday hours
The sunbeams slowly steal,
Gilding the beer-shop's saw-dust bowers,
The cabbage-stalks in lieu of flowers,
The trodden orange-peel,
Till, calm as heaven, the moon appears,
A Sister in a house of tears,
Who soothes, but cannot heal.
And now the cheap excursionists
Come, tired and happy, home,
And hear amid the noisy streets
The churning of the foam.
They've seen the surges rolling in
With slow, reluctant roar.
Or shouted to the ceaseless din
Along the rocky shore;
And others in the woodland way,
Or on the breezy down,
Have gone excursioning astray,
While I have stayed in Town,
And wished that I was dead and bu-ri-ed,
For all my Sunday gown.
And little BOBBY'S hair is curled
By country breezes sweet;
And LIZZIE'S heart is full of light,
Though heavy are her feet.
Father and mother face their plight
More hopeful for the treat,
And bless the God who made a world
Beyond Great Gasworks Street.
WHERE AND HOW TO SPEND A HAPPY DAY, WEATHER PERMITTING, OF COURSE.—Go to Sevenoaks; lovely drive, see Knole Park and House, drive back viâ Farningham—prettiest place possible, and one that the broken-hearted Tupman might have chosen for his retreat from the madding crowd—to Dartford, where dine at the ancient hostelrie called "The Bull." Recommended by the Punch faculty, the Bull and no mistake. Then up to London, still by road,—if a fine moonlight night, delightful,—and remember the summer day so well spent as "a Knole 'Oliday."