While I dose in the warmth of an early fire-light.

As we strive to remove from the soul an old strain,

Thus the outline I’ve tried to erase from my brain;

But a specter stands near with sepulchral face.

And over my hearthstone the same scene doth trace—

She colors the landscape and scoffs at my tears,

As I gaze on the wreck of scarce twenty-one years.

’Twas the home of my boyhood. In ruins it stood,

And autumn had saddened the meadow and wood;

The old locust grove, where the crows used to build,

The plowshare and harrow together had tilled.

Not a sprig of broomsedge did the hillside adorn,

But here and there stacked was the newly shocked corn.

Not a wild flower bloomed—through my heart ran a chill,

As I bowed by the spring at the foot of the hill.

No trickle of water fell soft on my ear—

Unless ’twas the sound of a swift falling tear—

For Time in his raving had paused here to drink,

And I found only dregs as I gasped on the brink.

Long I stood, and I gazed like one in a trance,

And I shuddered as toward me the specter advanced;

Did the chill of her hand then my heart penetrate?

Dead, it seemed, as I leaned on the old garden gate.

Where the sweet-william bloomed on the old fashioned walk,

Towered and flourished the rank mullein stalk,

Where the raspberry vines purpled over the fence,

The iron weed stood just as proud as a prince;

But where was the summer-house under whose shade

I had gathered the grapes and my sisters had played?

“Where, oh! where,” I exclaimed (too unnerved then to fear),

“Are the joys of my youth?” “Gone,” was hissed in my ear.

As the blind lead the blind it seemed I was lead

Over stubble and thorns till my feet ached and bled.

Then we stood by a door that had rotted apart—

Here the thistle had broken its soft, downy heart—

I glanced toward the mantel, an owl hooted there,

And a rat made its nest in my mother’s old chair,

“Oh! God,” I repeated, “’tis too hard to bear,”

And I knelt on the threshold in low, fervent prayer.

“Why, papa,” a little voice called soft and clear,

As she climbed on my knee and kissed off a tear,

“What a long nap you’ve had; why mamma’s at tea,

Now, papa, wake up and come on with me.”

“My darling!” I whispered, and pressed to my face

A cheek that was soft as a billow of lace.

“What if the old home can not weather the storms

When a foretaste of Heaven I hold in my arms.”

September 7, 1885.