Byways Around San Francisco Bay

<h2><SPAN name="topic16" id="topic16"></SPAN>The Stake and Rider Fence</h2> <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> <p>I love to let my fancy go wandering where it will,</p> <p>To the happy days of boyhood, to the meadow and the hill;</p> <p>To the brooks and quiet places, to the woods that seemed immense,</p> <p>But they always linger fondly at the stake-and-rider fence.</p> </div> <div class="stanza"> <p>Here, cicadas sing their loudest, and the crickets draw the bow,</p> <p>And the 'hoppers and the locusts join the chorus, soft and low;</p> <p>And you hear the bees a humming like a fiddle with one string,</p> <p>While the air just seems to vibrate with a soothing kind of ring.</p> </div> <div class="stanza"> <p>There the squirrel scolds and chatters as he runs along the rail,</p> <p>And you hear the rain-crow calling, and the whistle of the quail;</p> <p>And the catbird, and the blue jay, scold with vigor most intense,</p> <p>As they build among the branches by the stake-and-rider fence.</p> </div> <div class="stanza"> <p>There grew the tasseled milkweed with its bursting silken pods,</p> <p>And the stately, waving branches of the yellow goldenrod;</p> <p>The mullein stalk and asters, with teasels growing dense,</p> <p>God's garden, in the angle of the stake-and-rider fence.</p> </div> <div class="stanza"> <p>It was homely, but I loved it, and I wouldn't trade, would you?</p> <p>For all the hothouse beauties that a florist ever knew.</p> <p>Yes, I'd give up earthly honors, and count it recompense,</p> <p>Just to wander through the meadow by the stake-and-rider fence.</p> </div> </div> <hr /> <div class="figcenter"><SPAN href= "images/topic17.png" target="blank"><ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src= "images/topic17.png" alt="Moonlight" /></SPAN></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />