LONGING FOR HOME. Athwart the ragged rift the Moon looms pale, And making silvern shadows with her breath, A scream!-and all is still beneath the sky, 247 Robert Buchanan. LONGING FOR HOME. I. A song of a boat: There was once a boat on a billow: Lightly she rocked to her port remote, And the foam was white in her wake like snow, And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow, And bent like a wand of willow. 2. I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat I marked her course till a dancing mote 3. I pray you hear my song of a boat, My boat, you shall find none fairer afloat, 248 LONGING FOR HOME. Long I looked out for the lad she bore, On the open desolate sea, And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore, 4. A song of a nest: Ah me! There was once a nest in a hollow: Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed, Soft and warm, and full to the brimVetches leaned over it purple and dim, With buttercup buds to follow. 5. I pray you hear my song of a nest, You shall never light, in a summer quest Shall never light on a prouder sitter, 6. had a nestful once of my own, Ah happy, happy I! Right dearly I loved them: but when they were grown They spread out their wings to fly O, one after one they flew away Far up to the heavenly blue, 7. I pray you, what is the nest to me, My empty nest? And what is the shore where I stood to see My boat sail down to the west? DEATH. Can I call that home where I anchor yet, Can I call that home where my nest was set, Nay, but the port where my sailor went, And the land where my nestlings be: Ah me! F. Ingelow. DEATH. THEY die-the dead return not. Misery They are the names of kindred, friend, and lover, These tombs,-alone remain. Misery, my sweetest friend, oh! weep no more! These tombs,-alone remain. P. B. Shelley. 249 250 AIRLY BEACON. AIRLY BEACON. AIRLY Beacon, Airly Beacon; Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon, Oh, the happy hours we lay Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon; All alone on Airly Beacon, C. Kingsley. THE MERRY LARK WAS UP AND SINGING. THE merry, merry lark was up and singing, Now the hare is snared and dead beside the snow-yard, C. Kingsley. LAMENT. 251 LAMENT. BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. A. Tennyson. |