Page:Home; or, The unlost paradise (IA homeorunlostpara00palm).pdf/53

  Oh, lightly dance the hours, and swift the day
Speeds round its circuit, if the heart be glad!
When with the frequent task and press of care
Come many a kindly impulse, born of love,
And many a fantasy, that warm the soul
With ever fresh delight; when sympathies
Seem e'en, like odors that exhale, to rise
Spontaneous, and to breathe themselves abroad
As if from sheer exuberance; and there flits
Before affection's eye the image fair
Of a dear face that absence cannot hide;—
Then, Time, thou turn'st in vain thy flowing glass,
To mark thy flight; no note the sand receives!
'Tis so that in that Home days seem but hours,
And weeks but days, and months, as weeks, go by.
The blithesome wife guides all with patient skill,
And taste that seems an instinct; fain to make
Parlor and library, each several room,
Each mantle, niche and arch, or deep recess,
Fair with chaste beauty, grateful to his eye
Whose look approving, oft as he returns,