Songs of the Affections, with Other Poems/The Return
THE RETURN.
"Hast thou come with the heart of thy childhood back?
The free, the pure, the kind?"
—So murmur'd the trees in my homeward track,
As they play'd to the mountain-wind.
"Hath thy soul been true to its early love?"
Whisper'd my native streams;
"Hath the spirit nursed amidst hill and grove,
Still revered its first high dreams?"
"Hast thou borne in thy bosom the holy prayer
Of the child in his parent-halls?"
—Thus breathed a voice on the thrilling air,
From the old ancestral walls.
"Hast thou kept thy faith with the faithful dead,
Whose place of rest is nigh?
With the father's blessing o'er thee shed,
With the mother's trusting eye?"
—Then my tears gush'd forth in sudden rain,
As I answer'd—"O, ye shades!
I bring not my childhood's heart again
To the freedom of your glades.
"I have turn'd from my first pure love aside,
O bright and happy streams!
Light after light, in my soul have died
The day-spring's glorious dreams.
"And the holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass'd—
The prayer at my mother's knee;
Darken'd and troubled I come at last,
Home of my boyish glee!
"But I bear from my childhood a gift of tears,
To soften and atone;
And oh! ye scenes of those blessed years
They shall make me again your own."