There’s a stillness—the music has stopped, And she turns with an indolent grace: Am I waking, or still do I dream, Or is there a tear on her face?
Then I step from the shadow apart, Till I stand by her side on the stair: One step to the flowers and light From the darkness and gloom of despair.
And I take both her hands in my own, And I look in her eyes once again,— And I shiver and tremble and shake When I think what a fool I have been.
And I stamp and I claw at the air, And rave at myself for a spell; For it isn’t the girl, after all, That I met at the Newport hotel. Puck.
THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.
It stands in a sunny meadow, The house so mossy and brown, With its cumbrous old stone chimneys, And the gray roof sloping down.
The trees fold their green arms round it,— The trees a century old; And the winds go chanting through them, And the sunbeams drop their gold.
The cowslips spring in the marshes, The roses bloom on the hill, And beside the brook in the pasture The herds go feeding at will.
Within, in the wide old kitchen The old folks sit in the sun That creeps through the sheltering woodbine Till the day is almost done.