TO MINNIE

And pleasant there to lie in bed

And see the pictures overhead—

The wars about Sebastopol,

The grinning guns along the wall,
The daring escalade,

The plunging ships, the bleating sheep,
The happy children ankle-deep |

And laughing as they wade:

All these are vanished clean away,
And the old manse is changed to-day ;
It wears an altered face

And shields a stranger race.

The river, on from mill to mill,

Flows past our childhood’s garden still ;
But ah! we children never more

Shall watch it from the water-door !
Below the yew—it still is there—

Our phantom voices haunt the air

As we were still at play,

And I can hear them call and say:
‘How far is it to Babylon ?’

 

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