H.W. LONG FELLOW - ‘’ THE CHILDREN’S POET’’ PRELUDE TO ‘’TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN’’

‘’One Autumn night in Sudbury town,

  Across the meadows bare and brown,

  The windows of the wayside inn

  Gleamed red with fire light through the leaves

  Of wood bine, hanging from the eaves,

  Their crimson curtains rent and thin.

  As ancient is this hostelry

  As any in the land may be,

  Built in the old colonial day,

  When men lived in the grander way,

   With ampler hospitality;

   A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,

  Now somewhat fallen to decay,

  With weather- stains upon the wall,

  And stairways worn, and crazy doors,

  And creaking and un even floors,

  And chimneys huge and tiled and tall.

  A region of repose it seems

  A place of slumber and of dreams

  Remote among the wooded hills!’’