Explore "Tales of a Wayside Inn" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Baron Castine of St. Castine / Has left his chateau in the Pyrenees, / And sailed across the western seas. / When he went away from his fair demesne / The birds were building, the woods were green; / And now the winds of winter blow / Round the turrets of the old chateau, / The birds are silent and unseen, / The leaves lie dead in the ravine, / And the Pyrenees are white with snow.
His father, lonely, old, and gray, / Sits by the fireside day by day, / Thinking ever one thought of care; / Through the southern windows, narrow and tall, / The sun shines into the ancient hall, / And makes a glory round his hair. / The house-dog, stretched beneath his chair, / Groans in his sleep as if in pain / Then wakes, and yawns, and sleeps again, / So silent is it everywhere, -- / So silent you can hear the mouse / Run and rummage along the beams / Behind the wainscot of the wall; / And the old man rouses from his dreams, / And wanders restless through the house, / As if he heard strange voices call.