HOME COMING.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1530, 2 December 1873, Page 34

HOME COMING.

When brothers leave the old hcartli-stuue And go, each one, a separate way, We think, as v,e go on alone Along our pathway, day by day, Of olden scenes and faces clear: Of voices thai wo miss so much. And 'memory brings the absent near. Until we almost feel the touch Of loving hands, and hear, once more, The dear, old voices ringing out, As in that happy time of yore, Ere life had caught a shade of doubt.

If you should place against your car The shell you plundered from the sea Down iu its hidden-heart you hear

A low and tender melody; A murmur of the restless tide; A yearning, born of; memory: And though its longing be denied. The shell keeps singing of tac sea. And sometimes when old memories throng, Like ghosts, the chambers of our soul, We feci the yearning, deep and strong, A longing weeaunot control To lay our cares and business by And seek the old familiar ways. And cross home's threshold, and sit down, With comrades of our earlier days.

For. though our paths are sundered wide, We Ceel Unit we are brothers yet. And by-aml-byc we turn aside From hurrying can: and worldly Tret, And each one wanders back to meet 'His brother by the hearth of home: I think the meeting is more sweet, Bccnusc so far and wide we roam. We cross the lengthening bridge of years. Meet out-stretched hands and faces true; The silent eloquence of tears Speaks welcome that no words could do.

But, ah ! the meeting holds regret ! The sad, sad story often told, Of hands that ours have often met, Close folded under churchyard mould, Of eyes that smiled into our own, Closed iu the dreamless sleep of Cod. A sweeter sleep was never known Than theirs, beneath the grave's white sod. A tender thought for them to-night, A tribute-tear from memory ; Beneath their covering of Avhite Sweet may their dreamless slumber be !