Poems (Curwen)/To Non-Lovers of Home

by Annie Isabel Curwen

To Non-Lovers of Home.

What is the charm that makes you roam
These cheerless nights away from home?
Within the grate the fire burns bright,
And easy chairs to ease invite;
And yet you hurry off as though
By urgent business called to go.

Now, if you went at duty's call,
God knows I would not speak at all;
But 'tis not duty bids you leave
Your loving wives alone to grieve:
To grieve, and think, and sadly pine
For happier days of "Auld Lang Syne."

O men! yours is a changeful sex,
The very angels you would vex
With all the varied tunes you play
From early morn till close of day—
Now kind, now cool, by fits and starts;
Alas! for women's tender hearts.

You think, of course—or you wouldn't be men-
When you've been out and returned again,
To find a woman in her place
With pleasant greeting and smiling face;
And deem it unnecessary e'en to atone
For the long weary hours she is left alone.

It was not so in the olden time,
Ere the marriage bell was heard to chime,
And the solemn words at the altar spoken,
And those vows were made that have since been broken;
Compulsion alone made you leave her side
In those days before she became a bride.

O men! if you would but pause and think,—
Perhaps you would were it not for drink,—
Think how selfish your conduct appears
To her who has been, through long changing years,
Comforter, councillor, companion, and wife,—
That name itself should be dearer than life.

But, alas! for the changes in young and old,
For the warm love that so soon grows cold,
For tender lips that forget to-day
The loving vows of yesterday;
God grant you may not think too late,
When there are none to watch and wait.