The poetical works of Robert Stephen Hawker Edited from the original manuscripts and annotated copies together with a prefatory notice and bibliography by Alfred Wallis |
 |
HOME ONCE MORE! |
 |
 | The poetical works of Robert Stephen Hawker |  |
59
HOME ONCE MORE!
“They shall flee every one to his own land.”—Jeremiah 1. 16.
Home! home once more! and every tree
Looks with familiar face on me:
A smile comes o'er the accustomed hill,
A voice of welcome from the rill.
Looks with familiar face on me:
A smile comes o'er the accustomed hill,
A voice of welcome from the rill.
Home! home once more! but where are now
The bounding breast and brightening brow,
The footstep firm, the bearing bold,
Wherewith I trod these scenes of old?
The bounding breast and brightening brow,
The footstep firm, the bearing bold,
Wherewith I trod these scenes of old?
These all are fled—and in their room
Thought thickens all things into gloom;
Along this path the listener hears
Feet heavy with the toil of years.
Thought thickens all things into gloom;
Along this path the listener hears
Feet heavy with the toil of years.
Yet cleaves my soul to this dear glen,
The old remembrance lives again,
The scene sighs with its former breath,
Like that old Ridley loved in death.
The old remembrance lives again,
The scene sighs with its former breath,
Like that old Ridley loved in death.
60
Here did I chaunt to many a wind,
The themes of God's eternal mind;
While the deep stream and thrilling birds
Made music 'mid those mighty words.
The themes of God's eternal mind;
While the deep stream and thrilling birds
Made music 'mid those mighty words.
Here, oracles an echo found
Breathed, far away on Syrian ground,
By prophet-bards to whom were given
The lore and poetry of Heaven.
Breathed, far away on Syrian ground,
By prophet-bards to whom were given
The lore and poetry of Heaven.
Here, too, would dreamy thoughts recall
Gesture and tone of saintly Paul,
Till fancy heard the iron bands
That shook upon his lifted hands.
Gesture and tone of saintly Paul,
Till fancy heard the iron bands
That shook upon his lifted hands.
All, all is gone—no longer roll
Vision and dream around my soul:
But, in their stead, float down the wind
These fragments of a broken mind.
Vision and dream around my soul:
But, in their stead, float down the wind
These fragments of a broken mind.
Still, home once more; for in this dale
The dust of love will fondly dwell;
And scenes so dear in life shall hide
The hearts that death could not divide.
The dust of love will fondly dwell;
And scenes so dear in life shall hide
The hearts that death could not divide.
1840.
1 Who can read without emotion the last words of Ridley, written in his prison-house in Oxford, in memory of the “scenes that he had loved the best” during the life that he was about to forego for Jesus Christ his sake? Who that loves old Oxford can fail to be touched by the passage to which these lines refer:—“Farewell sweet Magdalen-walks in Oxford, where I did learn Saint Paul's Epistles by heart.”
| The poetical works of Robert Stephen Hawker | |