 | Poems: Second Series |  |
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CHILDHOOD'S HOME.
I passed through the open gateway and under the bending trees:
The boughs of the stooping beeches stirred in the summer breeze:
The branching shadows fluttered as asleep on the lawn they lay:
And up through the sunny meadow the avenue wound its way.
The boughs of the stooping beeches stirred in the summer breeze:
The branching shadows fluttered as asleep on the lawn they lay:
And up through the sunny meadow the avenue wound its way.
I passed through the open gateway and I was a child again:
The grass and the leaves were sparkling in jewels of last night's rain:
But lo! a turn in the pathway clouded my eyes with tears,
And I stood and gazed in rapture on the home of my early years.
The grass and the leaves were sparkling in jewels of last night's rain:
But lo! a turn in the pathway clouded my eyes with tears,
And I stood and gazed in rapture on the home of my early years.
The same—and yet I marvelled, for surely of old it stood
Fronting a boundless meadow,—on the skirts of a sombre wood,—
With a stately hill behind it, from whose height I used to gaze
To where the horizon bounded the world of my childish days.
Fronting a boundless meadow,—on the skirts of a sombre wood,—
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To where the horizon bounded the world of my childish days.
But the hill was a little hillock—the wood was a little grove:
'Twas only a little paddock through which I loved to rove:
I climbed, but the wizard fancy had somewhere lost his wand:
I looked to the far horizon, but the whole world lay beyond.
'Twas only a little paddock through which I loved to rove:
I climbed, but the wizard fancy had somewhere lost his wand:
I looked to the far horizon, but the whole world lay beyond.
Yet the grass had its wonted verdure—the sun had its wonted gold—
The raindrops trembled and sparkled, as ever in days of old:
And clouds were ne'er more fleecy, and never a fresher breeze
Passed with a crisper murmur through depths of the greenwood trees.
The raindrops trembled and sparkled, as ever in days of old:
And clouds were ne'er more fleecy, and never a fresher breeze
Passed with a crisper murmur through depths of the greenwood trees.
And I wondered if one of the dear ones, who left us and went his way
Into the kingdom of twilight misty and cold and grey,
Could rise from the depths of silence and come for a little while,
And hear the breezes rustle and see the green earth smile;—
Into the kingdom of twilight misty and cold and grey,
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And hear the breezes rustle and see the green earth smile;—
Would the earth he had left behind him—the earth he had loved so well—
That once was higher than heaven, and deeper than depths of hell—
Seem now but a mote in the sunbeam, a drop in the water race,
Its life the pulse of a moment—a foothold its orb of space?
That once was higher than heaven, and deeper than depths of hell—
Seem now but a mote in the sunbeam, a drop in the water race,
Its life the pulse of a moment—a foothold its orb of space?
Would he learn that its ancient limits, now grown so narrow and near,
Had veiled from imagination the skirts of a boundless sphere?
Would he look to the utmost verges that ever his feet had trod,
And still find far beyond them the world of the Heaven of God?
Had veiled from imagination the skirts of a boundless sphere?
Would he look to the utmost verges that ever his feet had trod,
And still find far beyond them the world of the Heaven of God?
Yet perchance as he gazed around him a tear of regret might rise,
And blot for a passing moment all else but earth from his eyes:
He would murmur “Oh God I know thee in the least of thy works complete:
It is all as of old I left it, and then it was oh! how sweet.”
And blot for a passing moment all else but earth from his eyes:
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It is all as of old I left it, and then it was oh! how sweet.”
| Poems: Second Series | |