Songs for a Little House | Page 4

waiting lass!
Laggard minutes slowly pass;

Patience, laughs the yellow fire:
Homeward bound is heart's
desire!)
Hark, adown the canyon street
Flows the merry tide of feet;
High
the golden buildings loom
Blazing in the purple gloom;
All the
town is set with stars,
_Homeward_ chant the Broadway cars!
All down Thirty-second Street
_Homeward_, _Homeward_, say the
feet!
Tramping men, uncouth to view,
Footsore, weary, thrill anew;


Gone the ringing telephones,
Blessed nightfall now atones.

Casting brightness on the snow
Golden the train windows go.
Then (how long it seems) at last
All the way is overpast.
Heart that
beats your muffled drum,
Lo, your venturer is come!
Wide the door!
Leap high, O fire!
Home at length is heart's desire!
Gone is
weariness and fret,
At the sill warm lips are met.
Once again may
be renewed
The conjoined beatitude.
READING ALOUD
Once we read Tennyson aloud
In our great fireside chair;
Between
the lines, my lips could touch
Her April-scented hair.
How very fond I was, to think
The printed poems fair,
When close
within my arms I held
A living lyric there!
THE MOON-SHEEP
The moon seems like a docile sheep,
She pastures while all people
sleep;
But sometimes, when she goes astray,
She wanders all alone
by day.
Up in the clear blue morning air
We are surprised to see her there,

Grazing in her woolly white,
Waiting the return of night.
When dusk lets down the meadow bars
She greets again her lambs,
the stars!
MAR QUONG, CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN
I like the Chinese laundryman:
He smokes a pipe that bubbles,
And
seems, as far as I can tell,
A man with but few troubles.
He has
much to do, no doubt,
But also, much to think about.
Most men (for instance I myself)
Are spending, at all times,
All our

hard-earned quarters,
Our nickels and our dimes:
With Mar Quong
it's the other way--
He takes in small change every day.
Next time you call for collars
In his steamy little shop,
Observe
how tight his pigtail
Is coiled and piled on top.
But late at night he
lets it hang
And thinks of the Yang-tse-kiang.
THE MILKMAN
Early in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
You hear his
wheels come rolling, you hear his horse's hoofs; You hear the bottles
clinking, and then he drives away: You yawn in bed, turn over, and
begin another day!
The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart-- I'd rather be
the dairy _man_ and drive a little cart,
And bustle round the village in
the early morning blue, And hang my reins upon a hook, as I've seen
Casey do.
IN HONOUR OF TAFFY TOPAZ
Taffy, the topaz-coloured cat,
Thinks now of this and now of that,

But chiefly of his meals.
Asparagus, and cream, and fish,
Are
objects of his Freudian wish;
What you don't give, he steals.
His gallant heart is strongly stirred
By clink of plate or flight of bird,

He has a plumy tail;
At night he treads on stealthy pad
As merry
as Sir Galahad
A-seeking of the Grail.
His amiable amber eyes
Are very friendly, very wise;
Like Buddha,
grave and fat,
He sits, regardless of applause,
And thinking, as he
kneads his paws,
What fun to be a cat!
THE CEDAR CHEST
Her mind is like her cedar chest
Wherein in quietness do rest
The

wistful dreamings of her heart
In fragrant folds all laid apart.
There, put away in sprigs of rhyme
Until her life's full blossom-time,

Flutter (like tremulous little birds)
Her small and sweet maternal
words.
O PRAISE ME NOT THE COUNTRY
O praise me not the country--
The meadows green and cool,
The
solemn glow of sunsets, the hidden silver pool!
The city for my
craving,
Her lordship and her slaving,
The hot stones of her paving

For me, a city fool!
O praise me not the leisure
Of gardened country seats,
The
fountains on the terrace against the summer heats-- The city for my
yearning,
My spending and my earning.
Her winding ways for
learning,
Sing hey! the city streets!
O praise me not the country,
Her sycamores and bees,
I had my
youthful plenty of sour apple trees!
The city for my wooing,
My
dreaming and my doing;
Her beauty for pursuing,
Her deathless
mysteries.
O praise me not the country,
Her evenings full of stars,
Her yachts
upon the water with the wind among their spars-- The city for my
wonder,
Her glory and her blunder,
And O the haunting thunder

Of the Elevated cars!
ANIMAL CRACKERS
Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I
think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall
always insist upon these.
What do _you_ choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother
says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or

cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that _I_ love most!
The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know:
The kettle is singing, the
stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The
cocoa and animals waiting for me.
Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them,
Susan to wait;
But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat
in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said, he
would like to be me
Having