Poems (Howard)/The Old-Fashioned House

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The Old-fashioned House.
Of all the tender and comforting things That now and then sweet memory brings, There's nothing dearer that love recalls Than the old-fashioned house with its white-washed walls.
Not a mansion to-day, though a marvel of art, Can ever usurp its place in my heart; For there my earliest prayers were said, And I slept at night in a trundle bed.
'Neath coverlids reaching from feet to chin, By a mother's hand tucked gently in, And a good-night kiss on my tired brow—Oh, earth holds no such blessing now!
A garden was fragrant in flower beds Where marigolds lifted their velvet heads, And warmed by sunshine, refreshed by dew, The bachelor-button and touch-me -not grew.
In a river, that curved like a shepherd's crook, We fished for minnows with bent pin hook; Or with little bare feet oft waded through, And bravely "paddled our own canoe."
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'Twas a home of welcome no one could doubt, Whose latch-string hung invitingly out, And many a stranger supped at its board While blazing logs in the" chimney roared.
O this is an age of reform and change! And things aesthetic, modern, and strange—Improvements that savor of silver and gold Are superseding the cherished and old.
But I turn from palaces, built for show, With mansard roofs, and stories below Of frescoed, kalsomined, dadoed halls, To the old-fashioned house with its white-washed walls.

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