When you've tired of trails and treasure,
Drunk the dregs of pain and pleasure,
And you're camped beside the firelight all alone.
Have you heard the voices murm'ring
Things that set your soul a-yearning,
Looked a-slantways at the trail and dreamed of home?
Have you seemed to see the faces,
Midst the awful lonely places,
Of the ones you love the best grow sad and old,
Who have waited, prayed and trusted,
While you've sought and fought and lusted
For the tinselled, luring treasure men call gold?
Gold you've sought, and gold you've squandered,
As the world your feet have wandered,
While your folks in nightly rev'rence breathed your name.
Now you seem to hear them speaking,
"Father, safe into Thy keeping,
Take our boy, and bring him safely home again."
As you dream, the vision's alt'ring,
And you see a figure falt'ring
To the rustic gate where last you said goodbye.
Patient eyes the years are dimming,
Through your soul her cry is ringing,
"Oh, my boy, just once again before I die!"
Through the mist of mem'ry's waking
Things you've long forgot are breaking,
Scenes reflected in the campfire's lonely glow.
As you curse the lonely places,
Long for old familiar faces,
In the world you left a wand'rer long ago.
Calling: "Leave it all behind you,
Snap the lonely thongs that bind you,
They are waiting in the village o'er the foam."—
Ghostly voices softly murm'ring,
As from wilderness you're turning,
And your snowshoes print the backward trail for home.
'Twas a dream, but now you're speeding,
For you've heard the whispered pleading,
And all else is fading far into the gloom.
With your pulses madly throbbing,
"Mother, don't, ah, don't be sobbing,
I've remembered, and I'm coming to you soon."
Trail by day, far in the twilight,
Camping, still, beneath the starlight,
Leaving far behind a dim and lonely land,
Till you see the white cliffs gleaming,
Where it's home, and past the dreaming,
As you watch the wavelets breaking on the sand.
As you see the ivy clinging,
Hear the robin-redbreast singing,
And the land you left is still the same to-day;
Midst the scenes you've dreamed of often,
As the whisp'ring breezes soften,
For a moment desp'rate years are rolled away.
While the crimson sun is setting,
Trails and hardness you're forgetting,
For beside the rose-wreathed cottage on the hill,
'Neath the locks that years are whit'ning
Loving eyes are softly bright'ning,
In the home land there's a welcome for you still.
P'r'aps you know that back you'll wander,
To the lone land over yonder,
In the birth of nations still a part you'll play.
And perhaps be glad to listen,
When the voice demands submission,
Turn again and wander exiled on your way.
But you catch a whispered murm'ring,
"Dad, thank God our boy's returning,"
Closely clasp the feeble figures to your breast.
God, it's all that really matters,
And her voice the fancy shatters,
For the trail has led you home, a-while to rest.
YESTERDAY
There's a land we knew in the days gone by,
And builded our castles there.
There are trails we trod in the dawning light,
With never a thought of care.
There were dreams we dreamed, there were plans we planned.
But lingered upon our way.
As we trod midst a halo of glory
The morning of yesterday.
For our hearts were light, and the way was bright,
What matter the day was long.
Cloudless years were ours, and the shady bowers
Re-echoed our blithesome song.
At the warning cry, as they passed us by,
We mocked, for our hearts were gay—
Solemn plodders who passed us at noontide,
The noontide of yesterday.
Did we linger long, ah, 'twas sweet to do
To-morrow, we said with pride.
For the way was steep, and we laid to sleep
And dream where the trails divide.
But the sun was low, as we rose to go,
And ah, it was cold and grey,
While the shadows of even were falling—
The evening of yesterday.