Poems (Stephens)/The old deserted home

by Eliza Jane Stephens

THE OLD DESERTED HOME.

'Tis sad to see a torn and battered roof,
 And weeds grown rank beside the garden wall,
Sweet flowers run wild, once kept by careful hands,
 Lone paths where children's feet were wont to fall.

And sadder yet to enter silent halls
 That echoed erst to greetings glad and sweet,
While memory triumphs over change and death,
 In visions of the group we used to meet.

And as we wander on from room to room,
 Each brings to mind some past endearing scene
That gently strikes a chord within our hearts,
 And makes a fading recollection green.

While once again we faithfully recall
 The features of some long forgotten face,
The kindly accents of a loved one's voice,
 Or some dear form of most bewitching grace.

We seem again to see those blooming youth
 Rejoicing in their golden dreams of life;
Those aged friends still round the fireside cling
 In sweet content, apart from worldly strife.

We think how much of hope bad here its birth,
 Was fondly cherished, too, and now is fled;
How many fears, what anxious cares were known
 That bulled lie in ashes of the dead.

How much of great resolve and patient toil,
 What aspirations for a truer sphere,
Made beautiful and fragrant to us still,
 The transient lives of those who journeyed here.

How many here have shown abiding faith,
 And love as constant as their very breath!
Here some awoke at first to mortal life,
 And some have closed their weary eyes in death.

These memories consecrate the rudest spot,
 Forever dear to us though far we roam,
Whene'er we turn, amid our busy life,
 A reverend look upon our early home.