A picture is haunting my memory to-night,
While I dose in the warmth of an early fire-light.
As we strive to remove from the soul an old strain,
Thus the outline I’ve tried to erase from my brain;
But a specter stands near with sepulchral face.
And over my hearthstone the same scene doth trace--
She colors the landscape and scoffs at my tears,
As I gaze on the wreck of scarce twenty-one years.
’Twas the home of my boyhood. In ruins it stood,
And autumn had saddened the meadow and wood;
The old locust grove, where the crows used to build,
The plowshare and harrow together had tilled.
Not a sprig of broomsedge did the hillside adorn,
But here and there stacked was the newly shocked corn.
Not a wild flower bloomed--through my heart ran a chill,
As I bowed by the spring at the foot of the hill.
No trickle of water fell soft on my ear--
Unless ’twas the sound of a swift falling tear--
For Time in his raving had paused here to drink,
And I found only dregs as I gasped on the brink.
Long I stood, and I gazed like one in a trance,
And I shuddered as toward me the specter advanced;
Did the chill of her hand then my heart penetrate?
Dead, it seemed, as I leaned on the old garden gate.
Where the sweet-william bloomed on the old fashioned walk,
Towered and flourished the rank mullein stalk,
Where the raspberry vines purpled over the fence,
The iron weed stood just as proud as a prince;
But where was the summer-house under whose shade
I had gathered the grapes and my sisters had played?
“Where, oh! where,” I exclaimed (too unnerved then to fear),
“Are the joys of my youth?” “Gone,” was hissed in my ear.
As the blind lead the blind it seemed I was lead
Over stubble and thorns till my feet ached and bled.
Then we stood by a door that had rotted apart--
Here the thistle had broken its soft, downy heart--
I glanced toward the mantel, an owl hooted there,
And a rat made its nest in my mother’s old chair,
“Oh! God,” I repeated, “’tis too hard to bear,”
And I knelt on the threshold in low, fervent prayer.
* * * * *
“Why, papa,” a little voice called soft and clear,
As she climbed on my knee and kissed off a tear,
“What a long nap you’ve had; why mamma’s at tea,
Now, papa, wake up and come on with me.”
“My darling!” I whispered, and pressed to my face
A cheek that was soft as a billow of lace.
“What if the old home can not weather the storms
When a foretaste of Heaven I hold in my arms.”