Bellows Falls Times

The Yellow Cottage.
BY MARION DOUGLAS.
'Mid fields with useless daisies white,
Between a river and a wood,
With not another house in sight.
The low roofed yellow cottage stood,
Where I.
Long years ago, a little maid.
Through all life's rosy morning played.
No other child the region knew:
My only playmate was myself.
And all our books, a treasured few,
Were gathered on a single shelf;
But oh!
Not wealth a king might prize could be
What those old volumes were to me!
On winter nights beside the fire.
In summer. sitting in the door,
I turned, with love that did not tire,
Their well-worn pages o'er and o'er:
In me,
Though sadly fallen, it is true,
Their heroines all lived anew
One day, about my neck a ruff
Of elder flowers with fragrant breath,
I was. with conscious pride enough
To suit the part Elizabeth :
The next.
Ensnared by many wily plots.
I sighed. the hapless Queen of Scots!
Where darting swallows used to flit
Close to me on some jutting rocks.
Above the river. I would sit
For hours, and wreath my yellow locks,
And trill
A child's shrill song, and, singing, play
It was a siren's witching lay,
On Sundays, underneath the tree
That overhung the orchard wall,
While watching, one by one, to see
The ripe, sweet apples fall.
I tried
My very best to make believe
I was in Eden and was Eve!
Oh golden hours! when I, to day
Would make a truce with care.
No more of queens, in bright array.
I dream, or sirens fair:
In thought.
I am again the little maid
Who round the yellow cottage played.
-From St. Nicholas for December