Poems (Rice)/My Home
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MY HOME.
MAY I describe to you this bright midsummer even,
My sad, sweet friend, a picture of my home?
May I beguile your thoughts to this, my earthly Eden,
Where sometime hence I trust your feet may roam?
Nature, around these hills, is famed but for its wildness;
Above the village, west, our cottage brown;
We are charmed with birds, and winds of unsung mildness,
Where rocks and steeps wear a perpetual frown.
My sad, sweet friend, a picture of my home?
May I beguile your thoughts to this, my earthly Eden,
Where sometime hence I trust your feet may roam?
Nature, around these hills, is famed but for its wildness;
Above the village, west, our cottage brown;
We are charmed with birds, and winds of unsung mildness,
Where rocks and steeps wear a perpetual frown.
But smiling skies o'erhead, and laughing brooklets wander,
Lending their magic to subdue the scene;
And vales below, wrapped in a mist so tender,
Viewed through the vistas of the evergreen;
An influence soft, a quiet, holy feeling
Comes o'er my heart when I each picture view;
A sympathy to every sense appealing;
Would I could sketch them as they seem, for you.
Lending their magic to subdue the scene;
And vales below, wrapped in a mist so tender,
Viewed through the vistas of the evergreen;
An influence soft, a quiet, holy feeling
Comes o'er my heart when I each picture view;
A sympathy to every sense appealing;
Would I could sketch them as they seem, for you.
As you ascend behold, if I am not mistaken,
A villa, French, I think that is the style;
Emotions grand my home will not awaken,
Though loved by me, a most discordant pile;
For destiny and my strange fate debarring
My choice in simple matters of this kind,
Discord continually our happiness is marring;
A perfect home I do not seek to find.
A villa, French, I think that is the style;
Emotions grand my home will not awaken,
Though loved by me, a most discordant pile;
For destiny and my strange fate debarring
My choice in simple matters of this kind,
Discord continually our happiness is marring;
A perfect home I do not seek to find.
If you will enter now, my family composing,
See three in number over whom I care,
My broken wing beneath as trustingly reposing,
Three precious ones with faces all so fair;
Death came so terrible, affrighting ever
To these, and drove them to my mountain nest;
Here to remain, I hope, until the same shall sever,
Till they again shall meet 'the loved and blest;
See three in number over whom I care,
My broken wing beneath as trustingly reposing,
Three precious ones with faces all so fair;
Death came so terrible, affrighting ever
To these, and drove them to my mountain nest;
Here to remain, I hope, until the same shall sever,
Till they again shall meet 'the loved and blest;
Till they again shall meet their father and their mother,
So rudely torn from their soft warm embrace;
Poor children, here to find no friend, no other
To whom to cling, to find no resting-place,
To lean on me, their tender wants confiding,
And I so frail; but then I do resign
Them all to Him, and in His love abiding
To watch and guard them with His care divine.
So rudely torn from their soft warm embrace;
Poor children, here to find no friend, no other
To whom to cling, to find no resting-place,
To lean on me, their tender wants confiding,
And I so frail; but then I do resign
Them all to Him, and in His love abiding
To watch and guard them with His care divine.
A general harmony pervades our humble dwelling,
A discord seldom comes to jar the ear;
*Mid daily duties, often though repelling,
The sun is seldom ever clouded here;
Sickness and sorrow, with their touch so blighting,
Within our circle only I have known;
Those to suppress I constantly am fighting,
I wonder now how I should dare to own.
A discord seldom comes to jar the ear;
*Mid daily duties, often though repelling,
The sun is seldom ever clouded here;
Sickness and sorrow, with their touch so blighting,
Within our circle only I have known;
Those to suppress I constantly am fighting,
I wonder now how I should dare to own.
And greater charms, if here you ever wander,
Perchance in nature, and perchance in art,
That may induce, invite you long to ponder
And outline this, and too, the smaller part;
And now, sweet friend, your patience I am trying,
With this imperfect—what I hoped to do
Unfinished; ah! my fancy's colors dying
Ere I had blended, blended them for you.
Perchance in nature, and perchance in art,
That may induce, invite you long to ponder
And outline this, and too, the smaller part;
And now, sweet friend, your patience I am trying,
With this imperfect—what I hoped to do
Unfinished; ah! my fancy's colors dying
Ere I had blended, blended them for you.