Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse Part 15

Pavements a-frying in street and in square

Say, I've got a little brother

She's little and modest and purty

Sometimes when we're in school, and it's the afternoon and late

South Pokus is religious,--that's the honest, livin' truth;

Summer nights at Grandpa's--ain't they soft and still!

Sun like a furnace hung up overhead

Sure, Felix McCarty he lived all alone

The fog was so thick yer could cut it

The spring sun flashes a rapier thrust

The tired breezes are tucked to rest

To my office window, gray

Up in the attic I found them, locked in the cedar chest

Want to see me, hey, old chap?

_We'd_ never thought of takin' 'em,--'twas Mary Ann's idee,--

When Ezry, that's my sister's son, came home from furrin parts

When Papa's sick, my goodness sakes!

When the farm work's done, at the set of sun

When the great, gray fog comes in, and the damp clouds cloak the sh.o.r.e

When the hot summer daylight is dyin'

When the Lord breathes his wrath above the bosom of the waters

When the tide goes out, how the foam-flakes dance

When the toil of day is over

When Twilight her soft robe of shadow spreads down

Where leap the long Atlantic swells

Where the warm spring sunlight, streaming

Ye children of the mountain, sing of your craggy peaks

You know the story--it's centuries old--

THE END