Once Upon a Time, and Other Child-Verses. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

      Original

      As she soberly climbed the meeting-house

      hill,

      With her pretty eyes east meekly down.

      Little Elizabeth sat alone

      In the queer old-fashioned oaken pew,

      And earnestly on the parson bent

      Her modest, innocent eyes of blue.

      But, ah! the sermon was deep and long,

      The parson spoke with a weary drone;

      And she heard the honey-bees out of doors

      Hum, in a drowsy monotone;

      The very wind had a sleepy sound—

      Little Elizabeth began to nod,

      Though she told herself 'twas a dreadful thing

      To fall asleep in the house of God.

      "My fourthly is," the parson droned;—

      "I pray the Lord my soul to keep,"

      Mused little Elizabeth in a maze—

      And then—ah me! she fell asleep.

      The tithing-man crept down the aisle

      In solemn state, with his awful rod,

      To chide the folk in the meeting-house

      Who dared to whisper, or smile, or nod.

      Little Elizabeth soundly slept,

      All by herself, in the oaken pew,

      With the heavy gold-fringed eyelids drooped

      Over her innocent eyes of blue.

      Close to her tiptoed the tithing-man,

      And over her reached his awful rod,

      And poked the little Puritan maid

      For falling asleep in the house of God.

      Dear little Elizabeth, prim and pale!

      How her poor heart jumped when she

      woke and found

      The dreaded tithing-man at her side,

      And the queer poke-bonnets all turning

      round!

      Then she sat straight up in the old oak pew,

      Grave and pale as a lily-flower;

      But she thought the people all looked at her,

      While all their eyes did lower and glower;

      And, going home, she fancied the birds

      Called back and forth, with a knowing nod:

      "There's the little maid whom the tithing-

      man

      Caught fast asleep in the house of God."