FILLING HIS PLACE.
Young Rip Van Winkle took into his head To go on a cruise round the world, he said;
And in three years’ time he would come once more, And all would go on as it had before.
What a blank he left, alack and alack! But the years went round till they brought him back.
And one lazy day in the last of June Stood a sunburnt sailor, humming a tune,
And watching them play on the cricket-ground. He was champion once of the country round;
But that brawny lad with the laughing face, It was plain to see, was filling his place;
And with half a sigh he turned him away, Saying, “It matters not, it is naught but play.”
And he took the road to the old grist-mill, Where his place, he knew, they could never fill;