 | [Poems by Cary in] The poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary with introduction and notes |  |
THE HOMESICK PEASANT.
Oh! I am sick of cities; all night long
Orchards and corn-fields waved before my sight,
Till the quick moving of the restless throng
Broke on that pleasant vision of the night
With an unwelcome sound, and called my feet
Back from the meadows to the crowded street.
Orchards and corn-fields waved before my sight,
Till the quick moving of the restless throng
Broke on that pleasant vision of the night
With an unwelcome sound, and called my feet
Back from the meadows to the crowded street.
I grew a child of Nature on the hills,
Learning no lessons from the lips of Art,
And the restraint of cities cramps and chills
The warm, impulsive feelings of my heart;
Even the ceaseless stir and motion here
Grates with a jarring sound upon my ear.
Learning no lessons from the lips of Art,
And the restraint of cities cramps and chills
The warm, impulsive feelings of my heart;
Even the ceaseless stir and motion here
Grates with a jarring sound upon my ear.
It is not like my childhood: from the trees,
And from the flowers that grew beneath my feet,
And from the artless whispers of the breeze,
I never learned the lessons of deceit:
They never taught me that my heart should hide
Its thoughts and feelings with a mask of pride.
And from the flowers that grew beneath my feet,
And from the artless whispers of the breeze,
I never learned the lessons of deceit:
They never taught me that my heart should hide
Its thoughts and feelings with a mask of pride.
And therefore with the morning I awake,
To feel a homesick yearning for the hills—
A thirst no water on the earth can slake,
Save the clear gushing of my native rills;
And I once more upon their banks would stand,
Free as the breezes of my native land.
To feel a homesick yearning for the hills—
A thirst no water on the earth can slake,
Save the clear gushing of my native rills;
And I once more upon their banks would stand,
Free as the breezes of my native land.
Give me a sweet home, set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true,
And books whose stories should instruct and please,
When round the quiet hearth the household drew;
For in their pleasant pages I can find
All I would learn of cities and mankind.
With friends whose words are ever kind and true,
And books whose stories should instruct and please,
When round the quiet hearth the household drew;
For in their pleasant pages I can find
All I would learn of cities and mankind.
| [Poems by Cary in] The poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary with introduction and notes | |