Is not my light like that holier light
That Heaven sheds over life’s path?
L. E. L.
“HOME! home! vain wanderer, why that murmured plaint,
Breaking the quiet of thy green retreat?
The hills, the free breeze, and the echo faint
Of the rock-beating billows round thee meet;
Song too is thine, and at thy lattice glows
The bright wild tracery of the cottage-rose.
“Home! home! young stranger? Thine is darkly placed
‘Mid the pent city’s weary strife of sound;
Nor hath it natural beauty, nor is graced
By the proud splendours art can spread around;
Then let thy vain heart cease its vainer dreaming,
And taste the joys, here, here, like sunlight streaming.
“Thou art not lonely our gay band among,
The brave, the gentle, and the young are here,
Hearts flowering with affections fair and strong,
And voices musical with words of cheer;
Forget thy home, sad stranger, in those eyes
That beam more brightly than Italian skies.”
“Forget! Lethean stream reveal thy source,
And though within thee droops the aconite,
And verdure shrinks and withers in thy course,
No mountain rill to me were half so bright.
Childhood restored, pure and without regret,
That were a boon what were it to forget!
“Forget the passions that have gloomed the soul,
Like night upon the mountains; view no more
The phantom Time wave his accusing scroll
That conscience saw and trembled at before;
To feel no present happiness o’ercast
By aching fears oh! to forget the past!
“Yet not my home, sweet friend; it is not fair
And seemlier therefore, for a soul like mine,
The lovely and the glorious be thy share:
The weary bird doth but for shelter pine,
And the worn heart for old forbearing love,
That, like the patriarch, hails its wandering dove.
“Sunsets that antedate the scenes of heaven,
And smiles, and songs, and voices soft as those
That to the ear in other days were given,
But silent now, in memory’s cell repose,
Meek radiant eyes, stars imaged on a stream
Ye are all here, yet, yet, of home I dream.”
(Mary Jane Jewsbury)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Sadness Poems, Soul Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Youth Poems, Heaven Poems, Dreams Poems, Friendship Poems, Home Poems, Beauty Poems, Smiling PoemsBased on Keywords: antedate, forbearing, seemlier, rock-beating