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The Rising Storm Now, and at last, the lights are on, and the daylight is gone, And all the world is shut outside, with all the curtains drawn, And my big easy chair is where my book will get the light, And the gas grate is glowing red ; and outside in the night It seems to me a storm's afoot; the winds are whispering About the house; their fingers brush the house and seem to cling About its corners; as a child, when playing hide-and-seek, Touches the corner carefully and holds his breath to peek.
So many children have played round the old house in its prime- For there were swings in which to swing, the spreading tree to climb; So many tales the old yard knows-brimmed with heartaches and joys, Tales woven of the very lives of little girls and boys. Three little tads come back tonight-'-Call them Jim, John and Jo – The two boys, manly little chaps; and you would have to know Jo's self to know the beauty and the sweetness-the delight That lingers yet round the old house and whispers here tonight.
Their parents-we knew they were young-they never came to call- They were just misty background folk-scarce known to us at all; They moved away; the little tads went to another school And we saw them not any more; when days were growing cool That year we heard, some way, somehow, there had been a divorce- There is so much of that today-and we supposed, of course, The children would be taken in and cared for tenderly By relatives-and they became part of the used-to-be.
Just recently we've heard about the little tads we knew; Jo grew, her hair was flaxen curls, lips curved, eyes such a blue As only the cornflower gets out of sun, winds and sky, And she grew up without restraint as the swift years went by; She strutted in a beauty show-a bathing-beauty thing- Then posed in Sunday supplements-"Nymph in a Grapevine Swing;" You know the sort of thing I mean, the story such things tell- The moth and candle-sure, you do-her way led down to hell.
And Jim and John, footloose and free-God, help poor little Jim! He had his head shaved yesterday, at dawn death called for him- John, who got "life,' was "in the fields," the day was stifling hot, A guard was pulled down from his horse, there was a curse, a shot! A scurry for the underbrush-word flashed from town to town- A day of terror-night of hell ! At dawn hounds pulled him down! Their three debts to society are paid. The parents-I Have never learned of how they fared as the swift years went by.
I've just looked out-a lightning flash a moment left me blind! And then I glimpsed the old rope swing a-swinging in the wind! And I could almost swear I saw Jo sitting in the swing! And Jim and John with arms outstretched, as plain as anything! Their parents-and love's broken tie--it is no trick to tell; That something is wrong with the home when children go to hell. The curtains have been drawn, the lights are bright, and I have tried, But somehow I can't seem tonight to shut the world outside!
I have my magazines to read, I'm snug tonight, and warm, But outside the old tree is writhing, twisting in the storm ! Small fingers seem to try the latch and brush the window pane! And young eyes seem to weep; their tears are glistening- drops of rain ? Maybe. But I know ghosts are out-this bitter brimming cup, The wickedness of broken homes, the world is lifting up Has stirred up furies! I can hear the storm's swift, rising roar And frantic, frightened little hands trying to find the door !
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