Old Susan

WHEN Susan’s work was done, she’d sit

With one fat guttering candle lit,

And window opened wide to win

The sweet night air to enter in;

There, with a thumb to keep her place

She’d read, with stern and wrinkled face.

Her mild eyes gliding very slow

Across the letters to and fro,

While wagged the guttering candle flame

In the wind that through the window came.

And sometimes in the silence she

Would mumble a sentence audibly,

Or shake her head as if to say,

‘You silly souls, to act this way!’

And never a sound from night I’d hear,

Unless some far-off cock crowed clear;

Or her old shuffling thumb should turn

Another page; and rapt and stern,

Through her great glasses bent on me

She’d glance into reality;

And shake her round old silvery head,

With—‘You!—I thought you was in bed!’—

Only to tilt her book again,

And rooted in Romance remain.