Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]

AFTER LONG GRIEF

THERE is a place hung o'er of summer boughs And dreamy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps; Where water flows, within whose lazy deeps, Like silvery prisms where the sunbeams drowse, The minnows twinkle; where the bells of cows Tinkle the stillness; and the bobwhite keeps Calling from meadows where the reaper reaps, And children's laughter haunts an oldtime house: A place where life wears ever an honest smell Of hay and honey, sun and elder-bloom,—Like some sweet, simple girl, — within her hair; Where, with our love for comrade, we may dwell Far from the city's strife, whose cares consume.—Oh, take my hand and let me lead you there.