Here is the same old mansion,
With its quaint moss-covered towers,
And the summer sunlight sleeping
On the gleam of the garden flowers;
And the wild dove, far in the fir-wood,
Cooing in monotone;
And the stately, silent courtyard,
With its antique dial-stone.
The swallows have come as of yore, lad,
From over the sunny sea,
And the cup of the lily echoes
To the hum of the wandering bee.
The lark, in its silvery treble,
Sings up in the deep-blue sky;
But the house is not as it was, lad,
In those dear old days gone by.
'Twas here that her garments rustled,
Like music amidst the flowers;
And her low, sweet, rippling laughter
Made richer the rose-wreathed bowers.
But now, in its noontide brightness,
The place seems cold and dead;
And it lies like a form of beauty
When the light of the soul has fled.
All hushed is each lonely chamber,
That echoed to songs of old;
The chairs are now all vacant,
And the hearths are dark and cold.
Yet the joys I had here of yore, lad,
No heart but my own can know;
And the glimpses of heaven she gave me
In this dear home long ago.
But they went one eve, when she left me,
Mid the balm of the summer air;
There's a grave far over the hills, lad —
The home of my heart is there.
