The Farmer Sat in His Easy Chair

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.

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 self-same place:
As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye —
"Don't smoke," said the child; "how it makes you cry!"

The house-dog lay stretch'd out on the floor
Where the shade after noon 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:

Still the farmer sat in his easy chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moisten'd brow and the cheek so fair
Of his sweet grandchild were press'd;
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay —
Fast asleep were they both, that summer day.