Back to those halls, now so silent and empty,
Where voices of children once merrily rang;
To those dear dead windows still facing the garden,
Where the woodthrush, the robin and oriole sang.
Back to the solemn old bell in the tree forks,
Which summoned us home to the noonday repast;
Whose music had rung in the morning of centuries,
And yet was as sweet as the day it was cast.
From our home on the mesa we still hear it calling,
Long, long is the journey, o’er mountain and plain;