We danced at night in the farm-house,
While, fifty yards away,
We could hear the rush of the engines
When the fiddle had ceased to play.
But up got the lads and lasses
With many a merry glance;
And down went they all through the mazes
Of the dear old country dance.
There were gentle whispers and touches
Love only can hear and feel;
And pressure of dainty fingers
In the changes of the reel.
But the old man sat in the arm-chair,
By the fire that was sinking fast;
In his eyes was the look of the dreamer
Who is thinking of the past.
And I sat and watched the shadows
Of the firelight sink and flee,
But my thoughts were of him and his dreamings,
And what those dreams could be.
Were they thick with the well-reaped harvest
Of those long, dim eighty years?
The shadows of vanished sunbeams,
The mists of long-shed tears?
The changes all around him,
The homely customs fled;
Of his long past youth and manhood,
Of his friends with the lonely dead?
Were his thoughts of her who was with him
In the flower of her noble life,
Of her who had stood beside him
A true and a tender wife?
Did he feel once more the children
Lay their hands upon his knee?
Did he see in their eyes the promise
Of what each one would be?
Ah, vain is each idle question
That may spring from our hopes and fears;
We cannot know the thinking
Of him who is eighty years.
The old man sat in his arm-chair,
And still on his kindly face
The sinking firelight flickered,
And the thoughts I could not trace.
And still danced the lads and the lasses,
While, fifty yards away,
We could hear the roar of the engines
When the fiddle had ceased to play.