Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces, Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child. Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland; Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild. Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed, The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers; Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley, Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours; Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood— Fair shine the day on the house with open door; Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney— But I go for ever and come again no more.
In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane The redbreast looks in vain For hips and haws, Lo, shining flowers upon my window-pane The silver pencil of the winter draws.
When all the snowy hill And the bare woods are still; When snipes are silent in the frozen bogs, And all the garden garth is whelmed in mire, Lo, by the hearth, the laughter of the logs— More fair than roses, lo, the flowers of fire!
The stormy evening closes now in vain, Loud wails the wind and beats the driving rain, While here in sheltered house With fire-ypainted walls, I hear the wind abroad, I hark the calling squalls— ‘Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘you burst your cheeks in vain! Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘my love is home again!’
Yon ship you chase perchance but yesternight Bore still the precious freight of my delight, That here in sheltered house With fire-ypainted walls, Now hears the wind abroad, Now harks the calling squalls. ‘Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘in vain you rouse the sea, My rescued sailor shares the fire with me!’
XIX—TO DR. HAKE (_On receiving a Copy of Verses_)
In the belovèd hour that ushers day, In the pure dew, under the breaking grey, One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake, With brief réveillé summons all the brake: _Chirp_, _chirp_, it goes; nor waits an answer long; And that small signal fills the grove with song.
Thus on my pipe I breathed a strain or two; It scarce was music, but ’twas all I knew. It was not music, for I lacked the art, Yet what but frozen music filled my heart?