THE PADDOCK
Stumps and logs behind, before,
Paddock to the very door—
Just a clearing, and a house.
Some potatoes round it grew,
Here and there, a sapling tree
Was just big enough to see,
That was all, and that was—You!
Inside, Oh! ’twas worse. I mind,
Shelves and doors were all to find,
Only two rooms even lined,
And the stove dump’d down outside.
I was tired—I could have cried!
Andrew stood and look’d at it,
Then he turn’d, and look’d at me
Struggling that he shouldn’t see.
“Ay!” says he, “So little done!”
Oh, that dear, good, grieving face,
And that disappointed tone,
Fire and wine they were within me!—
“No!” I cried, “So much begun!
Why it’s just a new-made world
Given to us two to run—
Us, lad! Won’t that mend the moan?
Us! not you, nor me alone.”
Did it matter? Not one bit,
When I look’d that way at it.
Ay thank God! It was “us two!”
After those long years apart,
When we toil’d, and moil’d, and waited,
Solitary, separated,
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