Childhood Friends
CHILDHOOD FRIENDS.
One evening the Hall folk during a storm
Took a pack of old pictures as cards and played
Round a plate on which toffy and apples were laid.
The stoves with shut damper were glowing warm,
In eddying flakes the snow was flurried
Against the panes, that were coated with frost,
No jingle told that friends or the post
Through the deepening drifts of the roadway hurried.
Three ancient sisters were heirs of the place,
Who now, as in their grandmother's days,
Shuffled the pack in the lamplight's glow
And dealt out the people they used to know.
With every picture they got for their hands
They would softly twitch at their shawls a while,
Would speak of old times and simper and smile,
And shake their bonnets with ribbon bands.
A Lieutenant von Platen they used as a jack,
A homely Miss Dubb was "old maid" of the pack.
Took a pack of old pictures as cards and played
Round a plate on which toffy and apples were laid.
The stoves with shut damper were glowing warm,
In eddying flakes the snow was flurried
Against the panes, that were coated with frost,
No jingle told that friends or the post
Through the deepening drifts of the roadway hurried.
Three ancient sisters were heirs of the place,
Who now, as in their grandmother's days,
Shuffled the pack in the lamplight's glow
And dealt out the people they used to know.
With every picture they got for their hands
They would softly twitch at their shawls a while,
Would speak of old times and simper and smile,
And shake their bonnets with ribbon bands.
A Lieutenant von Platen they used as a jack,
A homely Miss Dubb was "old maid" of the pack.
The cards of the eldest would slip unduly.
She heard her sisters conversing coolly
Of bygone days—and night came on,
But she sat with them silent, as if alone.
The poodle slunk with an anxious whine
From her lap, then sniffed and with fixèd stare
Looked up at the vacant easy-chair,
Which, they say, with a beast is a certain sign
She heard her sisters conversing coolly
Of bygone days—and night came on,
But she sat with them silent, as if alone.
The poodle slunk with an anxious whine
From her lap, then sniffed and with fixèd stare
Looked up at the vacant easy-chair,
Which, they say, with a beast is a certain sign
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