"HAST thou come with the heart of thy childhood back, The free, the pure, the kind?" So murmured the trees in my homeward track, As they played to the mountain-wind. "Hath thy soul been true to its early love?" Whispered 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 gushed forth in sudden rain, As I answered -- "O, ye shades! I bring not my childhood's heart again To the freedom of your glades. "I have turned 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 passed -- The prayer at my mother's knee; Darkened 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." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AMERICA (1) by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE POET AND THE BABY by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE DAFT DAYS by ROBERT FERGUSSON THE ARROW AND THE SONG by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX [APRIL 9, 1865] by HERMAN MELVILLE TO - (2) by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY IN THE HOSPITAL by PATRICK JOHN MCALISTER ANDERSON A NYMPH TO A YOUNG SHEPHERD, INSENSIBLE OF LOVE by PHILIP AYRES |