The door slams back, it is scarce apart;
With steady eye and fluttering heart,
I watch the girls up the valley turn,
In search of peppermint and fern;
And the boys are waving their caps to me,
As they stand in that ragged and torn old tree.
In some wild way, I never knew how,
I climbed to the swing on that elm tree’s bough;
Was twitt’ring a song as I used to do,
And counting the clouds in the sky’s soft blue,