Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE AFTERNOON NAP, by CHARLES GAMAGE EASTMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE AFTERNOON NAP, by                    
First Line: The farmer sat in his easy chair
Last Line: Fast asleep were they both, that summer day!
Variant Title(s): A Picture
Subject(s): Farm Life; Home; Sleep; Agriculture; Farmers


THE farmer sat in his easy-chair,
Smoking his pipe of clay,
While his hale old wife, with busy care,
Was clearing the dinner away;
A sweet little girl, with fine blue eyes,
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies.
The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face;
He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self-same place.
As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye,
"Don't smoke!" said the child; "how it makes you cry!"
The house-dog lay stretched out on the floor,
Where the shade after noon uses to steal;
The busy old wife, by the open door,
Was turning the spinning-wheel;
And the old brass clock on the mantel-tree
Had plodded along to almost three.
Still the farmer sat in his easy-chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moistened brow and the cheek so fair
Of his sweet grandchild were pressed;
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay:
Fast asleep were they both, that summer day!




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