Thou wert weeping, the teardrops shining
Were flowing from thy yearning gaze,
For love the roses wept also,
For joy sobbed the nightingale.
And every tear found consoling—
A greeting from near and from far,
The garden was lit by a glow worm,
Enraptured the heavens a star!
NADSON.
THE OLD GREY HOUSE
Thou hospitable old grey house,—A greeting unto thee!
With thy red ochre roofs,—vine trellised o'er;
The gardens fair laid forth in blooming luxury,
The fields in glinting beads of dew stretched endlessly,
Beneath the sun's fresh kiss a gilded floor!
A silvery ribbon through the flowering green—
The icy billows of the river foam,
Above her clay-white strand are verdant arbours seen,
Spun o'er with leafage, through the waking land between,
And where the azure river's currents roam.
Prattling, the river lisps of love and of repose—
And in the distance shimmers, faintly dies;
A flower, secret listening as its message flows,
A roguish kiss of gratitude in fragrance blows,
While beckoning stars smile from the silent skies.
I greet thee, home and mother! Joys now charm anew
That I believed but once to me were given;
Thee I forsook,—and now my last expiring view
Turns back from fruitless conflict to thy vision true,
Love, no more mine, nor hope nor peace of heaven!
Mother and home, I greet thee! O caress thy child
Whom weariness, regret, despair assail—
With sighing of thy groves in the soft wind beguiled,
With sunbeams of thy Springtime smiling fair and mild,
And with the liquid song of nightingales!
Let me once only weep in the assurance blest
That I am not girt round with human scorn,
Let me but sleep once more upon thy gentle breast,
Forgetting in my childish, deeply-dreaming rest
The loss and failure of my life forlorn!