The strawberry tree and the crimson thorn,
And Fanny's myrtle and William's vine,
And honey of bountiful jessamine,
Are gone from the homestead where I was born.
I gaze from my Grandfather's terrace wall,
And then I bethink me how once I stept
Through rooms where my Mother had blest me,
and wept
To yield them to strangers, and part with them all.
My Father, like Matthew the publican, ceased
Full early from hoarding with stainless mind,
To Torrington only and home inclined,
Where brotherhood, cousinhood, graced his feast.
I meet his remembrance in market lane,
'Neath town-hall pillars and churchyard limes,
In streets where he tried a thousand times
To chasten anger and soften pain.
Ah I would there were some one that I could aid,
Though lacking the simpleness, lacking the worth,
Yet wanted and trusted by right of birth,
Some townfellow stripling, some Torrington maid.
Oh pitiful waste! oh stubborn neglect!
Oh pieties smothered for thirty years!
Oh gleanings of kindness in dreams and tears!
Oh drift cast up from a manhood wrecked!
There's one merry maiden hath carelessly crossed
The threshold I dread, and she never discerns
In keepsakes she thanks me for, lessons she learns,
A sign of the grace that I squandered and lost.
My birthplace to Meg is but window and stone,
My knowledge a wilderness where she can stray,
To keep what she gathers or throw it away;
So Meg lets me laugh with her, mourning alone.