Poems That Every Child Should Know/Home, Sweet Home
Home, Sweet Home!
"Home, Sweet Home" (John Howard Payne, 1791-1852) is a poem that reaches into the heart. What is home? A place where we experience independence, safety, privacy, and where we can dispense hospitality. "The family is the true unit."
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home!
There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!
An exile from Home, splendour dazzles in vain;
O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gaily, that came at my call,—
Give me them,—and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home!
There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight 'mid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of Home!
Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home!
There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like Home.
Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home!
There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!
John Howard Payne.