She sits with eyes intent upon the screen, A quiet woman with work-hardened hands. Beside her squirms an eager, shock-head boy; Upon her lap a little rumpled girl With petalled cheek and bright, play-roughened hair; While, bulwark of the little family group, Her husband looms, with one unconscious arm Lying along her chair-back. So they come Often, and for a few cents, more or less, Slip through the wicket-gate of wonderment That bounds the beaten paths of everyday. The Indians and the horses thrill the boy With dreams of great adventure; the big man Likes the great bridges, and the curious lore Of alien folk in other lands; the child Laughs at the funny way the people die. And she? The way the hero's overcoat Sets to his shoulders; or a lock of hair Tossed back impatiently; or else a smile, A visible sigh, an eyebrow lifted, so, -- They touch strange buried, dispossessed old dreams. And while her hand plays with the baby's curls Unthinking, once again she sees the face That swayed her youth as ocean tides are swayed Until she broke her heart to save her soul . . . And fled back to her native town . . . and left In the gray canyons of the city streets All the high hopes of youth. . . . She has picked up Her life since then, and made a goodly thing Out of the fragments; that is written plain Upon the simple page for all to see. I fancy that she hardly thinks of him Through all her wholesome days; but when, at night They go a-voyaging across the screen, And suddenly a street-lamp throws a gleam On a wet pavement . . . a man sits alone On a park bench . . . or else goes swinging past With that expression to his overcoat. . . . She does not pick this player-man, or that, But all the heroes have some trick of his. . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LITTLE ELF-MAN by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS HUNTING SONG, FR. ZAPOLYA by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE SEVEN TIMES SIX [ - GIVING IN MARRIAGE] by JEAN INGELOW SONNET: ON FAME (1) by JOHN KEATS AN OLD WOMAN: 1 by EDITH SITWELL BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER by THOMAS GOLD APPLETON THE FIGHT WITH THE SNAPPING TURTLE; OR, THE AMERICAN ST. GEORGE by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN |