MY HOME IN ANNANDALE REVISITED.

I leave with joy the smoky town,

As pining captive quits his cell,

O’er shining sea and purple fell,

Again to see the sun go down:

As once behind great Penmanmawr,

A ball of fire, o’er Conway Bay

He silent hung, then sank away,

And beauteous shone the evening star.

My village home at length I reach,

And stand beside my father’s door;

His feet are on its step no more:

From texts like this, Time loves to preach.

Daylight is dying in the west;

The leaden night-clouds blot the sky;

Across the fields, the pewit’s cry

Only makes deeper nature’s rest.

The water-wheel stands at the mill,

The fisher leaves the sandy shore,

By garden gate and unlatched door

Lassies and lads are meeting still.

Beside me stand the kirk and manse,

On this green knoll among the trees;

The summer burn still croons to these;

But where are those who loved me once?

Only a sound of breaking waves,

All through the night, comes from the sea:

But those who kindly thought of me,

Are sleeping in these quiet graves.

No sounds of earth can wake the dead!

I vainly yearn for what hath been:

The faces I in youth have seen,

With the lost years away have fled.

The faintest breath that stirs the air

Will take the dead leaf from the tree;

Thus, one by one, have gone from me

Those who my young companions were.

A stranger in my native place,

Wearing the silver mask of years,

None meet me now with smiles or tears,

Or in the man the boy can trace.

My trees cut down, have left the place

Vacant and silent where they grew;

From fields and farms, that once I knew,

I miss each well-remembered face.

This price, returning, I must pay,

With wandering foot who loved to roam:

Thrice happy he who finds a home

And constant friends, when far away.

As relics from a holy shrine,

Dear names are treasured in my heart;

Death only for an hour can part;

And all I loved, will yet be mine.

With blinding tears, I turn away.

Young hearts round this new life can twine;

But from my path has passed for aye

The light and love of auld langsyne.

Kirtle.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.