THE OLD HOUSE DREAMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3995, 7 October 1930, Page 68

THE OLD HOUSE DREAMS.

Ringed with my crumbling fences, gaunt, forsaken, Far from the busy ways. Wrapped in a' tangled web of brier and bracken I dream away the days Stripped to the sunlight, bare from sill to rafter, An empty shall I seem, Home but for lizards, void of song or laughter; And yet I hold my dream. Where are my darlings who were born and played here? Alas, they all are flown. Age had not claimed me if but one had stayed here, I had held last my own. You bonny lads, you daughters sweet and comeb'! Led by your dreams to roam, You give no thought now to the rambling, homely, Dun house ye once called home. Yet when between the sodden, broken timbers Drips the moon’s radiance thin, My little dream-child wanders through the chambers. Playing awhile unseen. Awhile yet I may feel his light feet leaving Warm impress on my stair; Deep in the night's heart I may hear his breathing. And know that he is there. Till the great chimney, naked to the weather, Alone points to the sky. We shall go down these last long years together, The little child and I. Of all my loves the passing years bereft me, Far-sundered from my side; This one alone I keep—the one babe left me. The little boy that died. •—Emma Bell Miles, in “ Strains from a Dulcimore.”