LITMIR.BIZ

      In the highlands, in the country places,

      Where the old plain men have rosy faces,

      And the young fair maidens

      Quiet eyes;

      Where essential silence cheers and blesses,

      And for ever in the hill-recesses

      Her more lovely music

      Broods and dies.

      O to mount again where erst I haunted;

      Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,

      And the low green meadows

      Bright with sward;

      And when even dies, the million-tinted,

      And the night has come, and planets glinted,

      Lo, the valley hollow

      Lamp-bestarred!

      O to dream, O to awake and wander

      There, and with delight to take and render,

      Through the trance of silence,

      Quiet breath;

      Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,

      Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;

      Only winds and rivers,

      Life and death.

      Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?

         Hunger my driver, I go where I must.

      Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;

         Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.

      Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.

         The true word of welcome was spoken in the door —

      Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,

         Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

      Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,

         Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.

      Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;

         Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.

      Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,

         Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.

      Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,

         The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

      Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,

         Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;

      Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,

         Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours;

      Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood —

         Fair shine the day on the house with open door;

      Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney —