The evening hours are here—the hours I prize.
The day’s work over, all my thoughts are turn’d
To the sweet rest which head and hands have earn’d—
To her who is so pleasant in my eyes.
A mile of road, a sinuous shady lane,
A patch of wood, a bridge—there stands my home;
No fairer ever yet in gilded tome
Was pencil’d; through the parlour window frame
I see the picture that adorns its walls,
Graces each room, graces my inner life—
The picture of a happy poor man’s wife:
I hear the welcome from her lip that falls.
Ere yet the sun drops in the little brook,
Into the wood we take an hour’s soft stroll,
Or, seated there, perchance some mighty soul
Communes with ours from his undying book.
For chiefly after all the cares of day,
I love to hear her read those trees among:
I often think the wild birds stay their song,
To listen to a yet more thrilling lay.
Not all alone we wander o’er the sward:
A little merry sprite, half black, half “tan,”
More than a dog, and yet not quite a man,
Is our companion, jester, friend, and guard.
Just half-way up the road a gentle rise
Reveals the lane, and there, with mingled hope
And fear, I search each grassy curve and slope
For her who is so pleasant in my eyes.
She often comes to meet me: will she come,
And stand just in the corner of the lane?
She is my Home! Oh! will she come again,
And make me, by her coming, nearer home?
’Twas thus in early days we used to meet.
Yes!—that small speck has grown a flutt’ring dress,
While the broad space between is growing less,—
My busy eyes and heart outstrip my feet.
And while my heart and eyes my steps outrun,
My thoughts o’erleap the present, and my fears
Say, “will it be thus too in coming years,
When evening falls and the day’s work is done?
Will she still wander with me in the wood,
Still meet me in the corner of the lane?
Or shall I have to look for her in vain,
And live alone on Memory’s meagre food?”