Explore "The Old Church" by Annie Fellows Johnston on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
CLOSE to the road it stood among the trees, / The old, bare church, with windows small and high, / And open doors that gave, on meeting day, / A welcome to the careless passer by.
Its straight, uncushioned seats, how hard they seemed! / What penance-doing form they always wore / To little heads that could not reach the text, / And little feet that could not reach the floor.
What wonder that we hailed with strong delight / The buzzing wasp, slow sailing down the aisle, / Or, sunk in sin, beguiled the constant fly / From weary heads, to make our neighbors smile.
How softly from the churchyard came the breeze / That stirred the cedar boughs with scented wings, / And gently fanned the sleeper's heated brow / Or fluttered Grandma Barlow's bonnet strings.
With half-shut eyes, across the pulpit bent, / The preacher droned in soothing tones about / Some theme, that like the narrow windows high, / Took in the sky, but left terrestrials out.
Good, worthy man, his work on earth is done; / His place is lost, the old church passed away; / And with them, when they went, there must have gone / That sweet, bright calm, my childhood's Sabbath day.