The "Stay-At-Home's" Plaint.

The Spring has grown to Summer;                 The sun is fierce and high;             The city shrinks, and withers                 Beneath the burning sky.             Ailantus trees are fragrant,                 And thicker shadows cast,             Where berry-girls, with voices shrill,                 And watering carts go past.             In offices like ovens                 We sit without our coats;             Our cuffs are moist and shapeless,                 No collars binds our throats.             We carry huge umbrellas                 On Broad Street and on Wall,             Oh, how thermometers go up!                 And, oh, how stocks do fall!             The nights are full of music,                 Melodious Teuton troops             Beguile us, calmly smoking,                 On balconies and stoops.             With eyes half-shut, and dreamy,                 We watch the fire-flies' spark,             And image far-off faces,                 As day dies into dark.             The avenue is lonely,                 The houses choked with dust;             The shutters, barred and bolted,                 The bell-knobs all a-rust.             No blossom-like spring dresses,                 No faces young and fair,             From "Dickel's" to "The Brunswick,"                 No promenader there.             The girls we used to walk with                 Are far away, alas!             The feet that kissed its pavement                 Are deep in country grass.             Along the scented hedge-rows,                 Among the green old trees,             Are blooming city faces                 'Neath rosy-lined pongees.             They're cottaging at Newport;                 They're bathing at Cape May;             In Saratoga's ball-rooms                 They dance the hours away.             Their voices through the quiet                 Of haunted Catskill break;             Or rouse those dreamy dryads,                 The nymphs of Echo Lake.             The hands we've led through Germans,                 And squeezed, perchance, of yore,             Now deftly grasp the bridle,                 The mallet, and the oar.             The eyes that wrought our ruin                 On other men look down;             We're but the broken play-things                 They've left behind in town.             Oh, happy Gran'dame Nature,                 Whose wandering children come             To light with happy faces                 The dear old mother-home,             Be tender with our darlings,                 Each merry maiden bears             Such love and longing with her                 Men's lives are wrapped in theirs.