A CAPE HOMESTEAD.
Just that glimpse of the Table Rock
Seems the key to the breathless spell.
Never, you'd say, could the wild wind shock
A single leaf from the oaks of Stel.
Four white gables, with scroll and bend,
Lettered and dated, nobly wide;
Red roof, and the shutters, end to end,
Flung back at the lattice side.
Sleep for ever seems nestling there,
All uncounted the hours go by.
Silent sits in his deep old chair,
That white-haired man, with the dreaming eye.
Does he think, as the shadows fall,
And the swift bats skim in the evening glow,
Of the haunting voices that used to call
Through the doorways long ago?
Think of the days when the young folks made
Mirth and music beneath that roof,
Danced at night in the moon's soft shade,
And rode and hunted by kop and kloof?
Yes, and the time when the boys would trek,
When the Cape cart stood by the open door,
Till they watched it rounding the far-off nek . . .
And another came back no more.
