Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er The tailor's old stone-lintelled door. There sits he, stitching, half asleep, Beside his smoky tallow dip. '@3Click, click@1,' his needle hastes, and shrill Cries back the cricket beneath the sill. Sometimes he stays, and over his thread Leans sidelong his old tousled head; Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye When some strange footfall echoes by; Till clearer gleams his candle's spark Into the dusty summer dark. Then from his cross legs he gets down, To find how dark the evening's grown; And hunched up in his door he'll hear The cricket whistling crisp and clear; And so beneath the starry grey He'll mutter half a seam away. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MOWER TO THE GLOW-WORMS by ANDREW MARVELL A LETTER TO LADY [MISS] MARGARET-CAVANDISH-HOLLES-HARLEY, WHEN A CHILD by MATTHEW PRIOR A SONG TO CELIA by CHARLES SEDLEY SONNET: TO J.M.K. by ALFRED TENNYSON THE TENT ON THE BEACH: 5. THE CHANGELING by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |