Explore "The Best Spare Room" by Joseph C. Lincoln on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I remember, when a youngster, all the happy hours I spent / When to visit Uncle Hiram in the country oft I went; / And the pleasant recollection still in memory has a charm / Of my boyish romps and rambles round the dear old-fashioned farm. / But at night all joyous fancies from my youthful bosom crept, / For I knew they'd surely put me where the "comp'ny" always slept, / And my spirit sank within me, as upon it fell the gloom / And the vast and lonely grandeur of the best spare room.
Ah, the weary waste of pillow where I laid my lonely head! / Sinking, like a shipwrecked sailor, in a patchwork sea of bed, / While the moonlight through the casement cast a grim and ghastly glare / O'er the stiff and stately presence of each dismal haircloth chair; / And it touched the mantel's splendor, where the wax fruit used to be, / And the alabaster image Uncle Josh brought home from sea; / While the breeze that shook the curtains spread a musty, faint perfume / And a subtle scent of camphor through the best spare room.