“An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain!
O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gaily that came at my call;—
Give me them! and the peace of mind dearer than all!
Home, Home! Sweet, sweet Home!
There’s no place like Home!
There’s no place like Home!”[226-1]
The audience were moved to tears. Even Daniel Webster, stern man of law, lost control of himself and wept like a child.
Payne’s later life was not altogether a happy one, and he felt some resentment against the world, although it may not have been justified. He was unmarried, but was no more homeless than most bachelors. He exiled himself voluntarily from his own country, and so lost much of the delightful result of his own early popularity. He may have been reduced to privation and suffering, but it was not for long at a time. Some writers have sought to heighten effect by making the author of the greatest song of home a homeless wanderer. The truth is that Payne’s unhappiness was largely the result of his own peculiarities. He was given to poetic exaggeration, for there is now known to be little stern fact in the following oft-quoted writing of himself:
“How often have I been in the heart of Paris, Berlin, London or some other city, and have heard persons singing or hand organs playing Sweet Home without having a shilling to buy myself the next meal or a place to lay my head! The world has literally sung my song until every heart is familiar with its melody, yet I have been a wanderer from my boyhood. My country has turned me ruthlessly from office and in my old age I have to submit to humiliation for my bread.”
Upon his own request he was appointed United States consul at Tunis, and after being removed from that office continued to reside there until his death. He was buried in Saint George’s Cemetery in Tunis, and there his body rested for more than thirty years, until W. W. Corcoran, a wealthy resident of Washington, had it disinterred, brought to this country and buried in the beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery near Washington. There a white marble shaft surmounted by a bust of the poet marks his last home. On one side of the shaft is the inscription:
John Howard Payne,
Author of “Home, Sweet Home.”
Born June 9, 1792. Died April 9, 1852.
On the other side is chiseled this stanza:
“Sure when thy gentle spirit fled
To realms above the azure dome,
With outstretched arms God’s angels said
Welcome to Heaven’s Home, Sweet Home.”
Much sentiment has been wasted over Payne, who was really not a great poet and whose lack of stamina prevented him from grasping the power already in his hand. We should remember, too, that the astonishing popularity of Home, Sweet Home is doubtless due more to the glorious melody of the air, probably composed by some unknown Sicilian, than to the wording of the two stanzas.
When we study the verses themselves we see that the first three lines are rather fine, but the fourth line is clumsy and matter-of-fact compared with the others. In the second stanza “lowly thatched cottage” may be a poetic description, but the home longing is not confined to people who have lived in thatched cottages. Tame singing birds are interesting, but home stands for higher and holier things. All he asks for are a thatched cottage, singing birds and peace of mind: a curious group of things. The fourth line of that stanza is unmusical and inharmonious.