We were tired of travel one afternoon,
And stopped at the sign of “The Great Barn-Door,”
And Jimmy and Alice took rooms in the loft,
While I had mine on the second floor.
Jimmy and Alice went climbing high
Over the rafters above my head,
And peeped thro’ the swallow-holes out at the sky.
—If Mother had seen them, what would she have said?
But I stayed down in the soft new hay,
And the sun crept in thro’ a yellow chink,
And a long beam found me out where I lay,
And tickled my eyes till it made them blink.
The dust-motes circled and whirled and danced,
And my pillow was soft and warm and deep,
And the hay smelled sweet, and it somehow chanced
That there in the mow I fell asleep.
And I dreamed a dream full of swallows’ wings,
And elfish motes in the dusty air,
And thousands of other wonderful things;
Till Jimmy and Alice found me there.