VI. Home

(B 838)

"I've roamed through many a weary round,

I've wandered east and west,

Pleasure in every clime I've found,
But sought in vain for rest.

"While glory sighs for other spheres,
I feel that one's too wide,

And think the home which love endears
Worth all the world beside.

"The needle thus, too rudely moved,
Wanders unconscious where;

Till having found the place it loved,
It trembles settling there."

A

The Patriot's Boast

S some lone miser visiting his store,

Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,

Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still: Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, Pleased with each good that heaven to man supplies: Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,

To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consigned,

Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.

Goldsmith.

"Green Fields of England"

|REEN fields of England! wheresoe'er
Across this watery waste we fare,
Your image at our hearts we bear,

Green fields of England, everywhere.

Sweet eyes in England, I must flee
Past where the waves' last confines be.

Ere your loved smile I cease to see,
Sweet eyes in England, dear to me.

Dear home in England, safe and fast
If but in thee my lot lie cast,
The past shall seem a nothing past
To thee, dear home, if won at last;
Dear home in England, won at last.

A. H. Clough.

England

O lovelier hills than thine have laid
My tired thoughts to rest;
No peace of lovelier valleys made
Like peace within my breast.

Thine are the woods whereto my soul,
Out of the noontide beam,
Flees for a refuge green and cool

And tranquil as a dream.

Thy breaking seas like trumpets peal;

Thy clouds-how oft have I

Watched their bright towers of silence steal
Into infinity

My heart within me faints to roam
In thought even far from thee:
Thine be the grave whereto I come,
And thine my darkness be.

Walter de la Mare.