The "Stay-At-Home's" Plaint.

        The Spring has grown to Summer;
            The sun is fierce and high;
        The city shrinks, and withers
            Beneath the burning sky.
        Ailantus trees are fragrant,
            And thicker shadows cast,
        Where berry-girls, with voices shrill,
            And watering carts go past.

        In offices like ovens
            We sit without our coats;
        Our cuffs are moist and shapeless,
            No collars binds our throats.
        We carry huge umbrellas
            On Broad Street and on Wall,
        Oh, how thermometers go up!
            And, oh, how stocks do fall!

        The nights are full of music,
            Melodious Teuton troops
        Beguile us, calmly smoking,
            On balconies and stoops.
        With eyes half-shut, and dreamy,
            We watch the fire-flies' spark,
        And image far-off faces,
            As day dies into dark.

        The avenue is lonely,
            The houses choked with dust;
        The shutters, barred and bolted,
            The bell-knobs all a-rust.
        No blossom-like spring dresses,
            No faces young and fair,
        From "Dickel's" to "The Brunswick,"
            No promenader there.

        The girls we used to walk with
            Are far away, alas!
        The feet that kissed its pavement
            Are deep in country grass.
        Along the scented hedge-rows,
            Among the green old trees,
        Are blooming city faces
            'Neath rosy-lined pongees.

        They're cottaging at Newport;
            They're bathing at Cape May;
        In Saratoga's ball-rooms
            They dance the hours away.
        Their voices through the quiet
            Of haunted Catskill break;
        Or rouse those dreamy dryads,
            The nymphs of Echo Lake.

        The hands we've led through Germans,
            And squeezed, perchance, of yore,
        Now deftly grasp the bridle,
            The mallet, and the oar.
        The eyes that wrought our ruin
            On other men look down;
        We're but the broken play-things
            They've left behind in town.

        Oh, happy Gran'dame Nature,
            Whose wandering children come
        To light with happy faces
            The dear old mother-home,
        Be tender with our darlings,
            Each merry maiden bears
        Such love and longing with her
            Men's lives are wrapped in theirs.