University of Virginia Library

[Haunts of my youth farewell! A while I leave]

Haunts of my youth farewell! A while I leave
You in your loveliness! A while I go
To visit other scenes, more fair, perhaps, but none
I love so well. Resistless as thy stream,
Fair river, when thou pour'st along swol'n with
Autumnal rains, is love of home within
The breast of man. So Afric's wretched son
With eye bent on his fast-receding home,
Has drop'd his scanty fare, heeds not his chains
But with the tear-drops starting in his eye
Exclaims—“There I was born”—“There is my home.”
The wanderer of ten long years, whom oft
Encounter'd dangers never learn'd to shed
A tear, weeps like a child when he beholds
The smoke of much-lov'd Ithaca. Beauty's
Fabl'd Goddess, since on earth no more she
Deigns to dwell, has left with thee, O home, her
All-enchanting Love. Dearer to Lapland's
Sons her new-clad plains, her ice-bound rivers,
Her mountain tops the residence of storms,
Than the green sunny plains, the vine-clad hills
The winding streams of favor'd Italy.
And ye my youthful haunts, though some there are
On which my eyes could dwell a summer's day
Nor heed the sun blushing to leave so
Fair a scene, nor evening's soft approach warning
My lingering footsteps home, though some there are
Which those who look on fairer scenes would pass
Contemptuous by yet all to me are
Beautiful, round all alike O home thy
Charm is thrown I love you all. The yellow
Leaves at my return perhaps will rustle
In the autumnal blast or winter's snows
May hide my winding path still will I trace
It out: for there's no winter in my love
For thee no age but death. Amid the snows
Of age 'twill like the ever-green appear
As fresh as in my vernal prime.