5-4 eBook - pdf Poems of Charles G. Eastman Supplemental Reading for Lesson IV. - McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader (revised edition)

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IV. THE GRANDFATHER.

Charles G. Eastman (b. 1816, d.1861) was born in Maine, but removed at an
early age to Vermont, where he was connected with the press at Burlington,
Woodstock, and Montpelier. He published a volume of poems in 1848, written
in a happy lyric and ballad style, and faithfully portraying rural life in
New England.

1. 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.

2. 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 selfsame place;
   As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye,
   "Don't smoke!" said the child, "how it makes you cry!"

3. The house dog lay stretched out on the floor,
     Where the shade, afternoons, used to steal;
   The busy old wife by the open door
     Was turning the spinning wheel,
   And the old brass clock on the manteltree
   Had plodded along to almost three.

4. 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, all her soft hair lay;
   Fast asleep were they both on that summer day.


DEFINITIONS.

Hale, healthy.

Man'tel-tree, shelf over a fireplace.

Plod'ded, went slowly.

Heaving, rising and falling.