Page:The Writings of John Green Whittier (v.1).pdf/272

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NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS.
And call to mind old homesteads, where no flowerTold that the spring had come, but evil weeds,Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the placeOf the sweet doorway greeting of the roseAnd honeysuckle, where the house walls seemedBlistering in sun, without a tree or vineTo cast the tremulous shadow of its leavesAcross the curtainless windows, from whose panesFluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best roomStifling with cellar damp, shut from the airIn hot midsummer, bookless, picturelessSave the inevitable sampler hungOver the fireplace, or a mourning piece,A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneathImpossible willows; the wide-throated hearthBristling with faded pine-boughs half concealingThe piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;And, in sad keeping with all things about them,Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men,Untidy, loveless, old before their time,With scarce a human interest save their ownMonotonous round of small economies,Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood;Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed,Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;For them the song-sparrow and the bobolinkSang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;For them in vain October's holocaustBurned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,The sacramental mystery of the woods.
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