In the village where, when life glow’d fresh and bright, was my abode;
A little slab-roof’d smithy, of a stain’d and dusky red,
An ox-frame standing by the door, and at one side a shed;
The road was lone and pleasant, with margins grassy-green,
Where browsing cows and nibbling geese from morn till night were seen.
High curl’d the smoke from the humble roof with dawning’s earliest bird,
And the tinkle of the anvil first of the village sounds was heard;
The bellows-puff, the hammer-beat, the whistle and the song,
Told, steadfastly and merrily, Toil roll’d the hours along,
Till darkness fell, and the smithy then with its forge’s clear deep light