AWAY FROM HOME.
Carry me back to the hills of New England,
Back to the land of the woods and the sea,
Back to the shores where the blue waters beckon,
Back where the sunshine is waiting for me.
Make me a bed in the lap of the meadow,
Near where his rain-flute the reed-piper blows,
Cover me up with the wild things and clover,
Leave me alone where there’s nobody knows.
Leave me alone with the drift and the gladness,
Drenched with the long, lazy, midsummer noon,
Soothed like a child on the breast of its mother,
Soothed by the chirp and the twitter and croon.
There let me dream till the dusk on its bosom
Bears me away to the kingdom of sleep,
Where to the hush of mellifluous music,
Slumbering, slumbering, quiet and deep,
I shall be watched by the Night in her beauty,
Fanned by the breath of the pine I shall lie,
Lost in the wiles of the whip-poor-will’s calling,
Calling the infinite silences nigh.
There I shall rest in the gold and the purple,
Under the clouds with the moon peeping through,
I shall not wake at the stir of the grasses,
I shall not wake at the fall of the dew.
I shall awake when the bell-throated veery
Calls from his castle to welcome the sun,
Or, it may be from the glance and the glitter,
Brewed in the marshes and over me spun.
I shall arise when the elm-branches rustle,
I shall look out on the blue tossing sea,
Daylight and dawning, God in the morning
Stirring the dauntless eternal in me.
I shall go forth to the rapture of living,
Lightness of spirit my staff and my girth,
Moulded anew in the greatness of being,
Purged in my soul by the sweetness of earth.
Carry me back to the hills of New England,
Back to the land of the woods and the sea,
Back to the shores where the blue waters beckon,
Back where the sunshine is waiting for me.