"Common as light is love. And its familiar voice wearies not ever." Shelley.
Love knoweth everybody's house, And every human haunt,And comes unbidden everywhere, Like people we don't want.The turnpike-roads and little creeks Are written with love's words,And you hear his voice like a thousand bricks In the lowing of the herds.
He peeps into the teamster's heart. From his Buena Vista's rim,And the cracking whips of many men Can never frighten him.He'll come to his cart in the weary night, When he's dreaming of his craft;And he'll float to his eye in the morning light, Like a man on a river raft.
He hears the sound of the cooper's adze, And makes him too his dupe.For he sighs in his ear from the shaving pile, As he hammers on the hoop.The little girl, the beardless boy, The men that walk or stand.He will get them all in his mighty arms, Like the grasp of your very hand.
The shoemaker bangs above his bench, And ponders his shining awl,For love is under the lapstone hid, And a spell is on the wall.It heaves the sole where he drives the pegs, And speaks in every blow,Till the last is dropped from his crafty hand And his foot hangs bare below.
He blurs the prints which the shopmen sell, And intrudes on the hatter's trade,And profanes the hostler's stable-yard In the shape of the chamber-maid.In the darkest night and the bright daylight, Knowing that he can win,In every home of good-looking folks Will human love come in.
