Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DREAM AND REALITY, by O. E. YOUNG


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DREAM AND REALITY, by                    
First Line: The farmer stood by the cottage door
Last Line: On the rock-ribbed hills of maine.
Subject(s): Dreams; Farm Life; Sons; Summer; Nightmares; Agriculture; Farmers


The farmer stood by the cottage door,
When the summer day was done,
As down from the hillside the cattle came
To the farmyard, one by one,
And, following close to the sleek-haired kine,
Came the farmer's only son.
The father gazed on the manly boy
With his heart full of love and pride
And thought, in the days when life's toil was done
And he neared the stream's dark side,
That loving and filial hands would smooth
His path down to death's cold tide.

He dreamed of life's evening, calm and sweet,
When the boy should come home to stay,
And he should stand, as he stood that night,
A grandsire old and gray,
While his son's son followed the cattle home
At the close of the summer day.

But the years rolled on and those bright dreams fled;
They vanished in tears and pain,
For the son sleeps under the golden sands
Of a California plain,
And the old man drives home the cows alone
On the rock-ribbed hills of Maine.





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