Where is now the wide hearth with the big fagot’s blaze,
Where circled the legend and song of old days?
The legend’s forgotten, the hearth is grown cold,
The home of my childhood to strangers is sold!
Like a pilgrim who speeds on a perilous way,
I pause, ere I part, oft again to survey
Those scenes ever dear to the friends I deplore,
Whose feast of young smiles I may never share more!
William Motherwell, 1798–1835.