* * * * *

Was macht’s dass ich so dort hi’ guk,
An sell End vun der Bank! 
Weescht du’s?  Mei’ Herz is noch net dodt,
Ich wees es, Got sei Dank! 
Wie manchmal sass mai Dady dort,
Am Summer-Nochmiddag,
Die Hande uf der Schoos gekreizt,
Sei Schtock bei Seite lag. 
Was hot er dort im Schtille g’denkt? 
Wer mecht es wisse—­sag?

Home-sick Ness.

    I know not what the reason is: 
     Where’er I dwell or roam,
    I make a pilgrimage each year,
     To my old childhood home. 
    Have nothing there to give or get—­
      No legacy, no gold—­
    Yet by some home-attracting power
      I’m evermore controlled;
    This is the way the homesick do,
      I often have been told.

* * * * *

As nearer to the spot I come
More sweetly am I drawn;
And something in my heart begins
To urge me faster on. 
Ere quite I’ve reached the last hilltop—­
You’ll smile at me, I ween!—­
I stretch myself high as I can,
To catch the view serene—­
The dear old stone house through the trees
With shutters painted green!

* * * * *

How do I love those poplar trees;
What tall and stalely things! 
See! on the top of one just now
A starling sits and sings. 
He’ll fall!—­the twig bends with his weight! 
He likes that danger best. 
I see the red upon his wings,—­
Dark shining is the rest. 
I ween his little wife has built
On that same tree her nest.

* * * * *

See! really I am near the house;
How short the distance seems! 
There is no sense of time when one
Goes musing in his dreams. 
There is the shop—­the corn-crib, too—­
The cider-press—­just see! 
The barn—­the spring with drinking cup
Hung up against the tree. 
The yard-fence—­and the little gate
Just where it used to be.

* * * * *

Two spots on this old friendly porch
I love, nor can forget,
Till dimly in the night of death
My life’s last sun shall set! 
When first I left my father’s house,
One summer morning bright,
My mother at that railing wept
Till I was out of sight! 
Now like a holy star that spot
Shines in this world’s dull night.

* * * * *

What draws my eye to yonder spot—­
That bench against the wall? 
What holy mem’ries cluster there,
My heart still knows them all! 
How often sat my father there
On summer afternoon;
Hands meekly crossed upon his lap,
He looked so lost and lone,
As if he saw an empty world,
And hoped to leave it soon.