The home thoughts nestle and throb,
And the drifting breeze through the dim, gray trees
Stirs up the fancies wan
Of the old, cool life and a white man’s wife
With a white man’s babes on a lawn,
Where the soft greens please—yet each morrow sees
The flame that follows the dawn.
From dawn till eve the hot hours leave
Their mark like a slow-burned scar;
And a dull, red hate ’gainst the grilling fate,