A cottage for you and me

One of the first songs that my mum sang to me was about a cottage by the sea and two people in love that lived in it. I used to think of my auntie Dora while she sang it, she was as kind and gentle as my mum . The words went like this:-

There's a little brown road winding over the hill
To a little white cot by the sea
There's a little green gate
By whose trellis I wait
While two eyes of blue
Keep smiling through
At me.......

Whenever I see a pretty cottage I remember this song. In Italy people's faces light up when you mention a cottage. It brings pictures of idyllic living. In Italian there is the expression Due cuore e una capanna to say that if two people are really in love they need nothing more than a small hut. The same idea in a way. It must be a romantic vision for many of us and has been around for awhile. My poem for the day is by Irish Australian politician and lawyer Daniel Henry Deniehy (1828-1865) who also wrote poetry. His poem tells us that he also had romantic visions of living in a cottage with his true love. There is a clue in the poem that he lived in Australia because he mentions parrots.

Love in a Cottage

A cottage small be mine, with porch
  Enwreathed with ivy green
And brightsome flowers with dewfilled bells
  'Mid brown old wattles seen.

And one to wait at shut of eve
  With eyes as fountain clear
And braided hair and simple dress
My homeward step to hear.

On Summer eves to sing old songs
  And talk o'er early vows
While stars look down like angels' eyes
Amid the leafy boughs.

When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells
  And bright-winged parrots call
In forest paths be ours to rove
Till purple evenings fall.

The curtains closed, by taper clear
  To read some page divine
On Winter nights, the hearth beside
Her soft warm hand in mine.

And so to glide through busy life
  Like some small brook alone
That winds its way 'mid grassy knolls
Its music all its own.