How many a tongue
With words of wondrous eloquence, hath sung
Of ' Home, sweet Home!' How the old memories throng,
Stirred by the sweet notes of the dear old song,
Into the heart, and tears suffuse the eyes,
Of high and low, the simple and the wise.
'Tis a trite theme: and yet if it impart
One new, fresh feeling to the wearied heart,
Why not sing of it, when the sad soul longs
To hear the old, familiar, simple songs?
Old memories that visit us in dreams
Are always most delicious; and old themes
The only beautiful. Whoever hath
No pleasant recollection of the path
He paced to school, of the orchard, the old mill
Clacking and clattering with a rare good will,
The fields and meadows, and the silver brooks
That often made him truant to his books,
The marshes where he shot, the clear cold streams
Where the trout lurks;—who never in his dreams
Drinks from the bucket at the deep old well,
Or in the old church hears the old organ swell;
Hath grown hard-hearted, needs must be unkind,
And deserves pity from the poorest hind.
All things whatever that we see or hear,
Contain Home's image, and to eye and ear
Bring back old things; as in pellucid lakes
The clouds are imaged, when the fresh dawn breaks.
Is it because the heart to the harp is like,
The simple harp, which, on it though you strike
A hundred notes, has still its undertone,
The key-note of them all, that rings alone,
A pensive sound, after the rest are dead?
The fresh cool rain, that plashes overhead,
On the clay-covered roof, the music rude,
Invading suddenly my solitude,
With discord dire, true Aztec minstrelsy,
A barbarous music, murdered barbarously;
The delicate foot that glances past the door;
Bring vividly from memory's lumber-store,
The rains that often lulled me to sweet rest
In the old garret, where I lay and guessed
At the meaning of full many a puzzling book;
The music of the clear contented brook,
That over the pebbles, chafing into foam,
Ran rippling, half a mile or so from home;
The ancient well-sweep, older thau my sire,
A stout and hale old age; the warm peat-fire
Of winter nights, when out of doors the sleet
And drifting snow at door and window beat;

The brave old house, fallen somewhat to decay,
Yet sound to the core, lusty, though mossed and gray,
With its dark rafters of good Yankee oak,
Seasoned by time, and blackened by much smoke;
Familiar fields walled round with massive rocks,
Where the autumn-harvest stood in sheaves and shocks;
And every ancient and familiar thing,
That seemed to watch and love me slumbering:
The magic music of my old friend's flute;
So very soft, yet rich, and sound and clear;
Though, sweet as it was, when its flue tones were mute,
His voice was still more pleasant to my ear.
The foot—but that's a dream:—
Yet one may keep alive a sunny dream,
In some green nook, deep in his inmost heart.
Ah! never may that priceless dream depart,
Or, fading, cease life's twilight-hours to bless!
That memory of the love and happiness,
That were the sunlight of life's golden dawn.
As summer -showers to the emaciated lawn;
Dews to sweet flowers; light to the sky-lark's eyes,
Who fain would sing at the gates of Paradise
His orisons, and thinks dawn comes too slow;
Leaves and cool shade to the nested throstle; so
To me that dream of early love is dear,
When frowning DESTINY is most austere;
Even when he chills the soul with cold eclipse,
The memory of long kisses on sweet lips,
The clear brown eyes, the gentle, loving look,
All soothe me, like some melancholy book
Of beautiful words, wherein enraged men read,
Until to passion gentle thoughts succeed,
And, as the book is, they are quiet too.