A SONG OF HOME. EMILY C. H. MILLER. LL day in the deepening sunlight All night the white waves of the moonlight I sit by my window and listen To the voice of the whispering breeze, But away over meadow and upland, A thousand swift fancies have flown, I see it again in my dreaming; The twilight is heavy and deep, I can hear through the hush how the water With a tune that begins at the sunset, A SONG OF HOME. When the sound of the grinding is still. O sweet as a mother's low singing To the baby asleep on her breast, Rings out that soft song of the water, When the twilight drops down from the west! How white through the boughs of the maple With the moonlight asleep on the threshold, All hushed! but I know by the hearth stone And one hath no need of their praying, And kneeling alone with our sorrow- We wept when we thought how her footsteps For the brows that eternity crowneth May never be saddened by woe, And the lips that have sung with the angels 66 ["When the song's gone out of your life, you can't start another while it's a-ringing in your ears, but it's best to have a bit of silence, and out o' that maybe a psalm'll come by-and-by."-Edward Garrett.] HEN the song's gone out of your life, That you thought would last to the end- That no after days can lend The song of the birds to the trees, The song of the wind to the flowers, "You can start no other song," Not even a tremulous note It dies in your aching throat. It is all in vain that you try, For the spirit of song has fled- The nightingale sings no more to the rose So let silence softly fall On the bruised heart's quivering strings; |