I WANT TO GO HOME.

There once wandered with me a beautiful child, With eyes like the antelope, lambent and mild; And she looked at me long, with an earnest gaze, As I watched the sun sink in a golden haze. She knew not the thoughts that were floating away, Through the closing gates of that radiant day; But a something she read in my dreaming eyes, Of the pale autumn leaves, and the sunset skies; And a chill came over her, she knew not whence— ’Twas the shadow of older experience. She looked up afraid at the heaven’s blue dome, And murmured, “I’m tired. I want to go home.” The child’s timid glance, and her quivering tone, Came gliding like ghosts, when my soul was alone; And oft, when I gazed at the heaven’s blue dome, She seemed to be saying, “I want to go home.” She grew up a woman, that lovely young child, With eyes like the antelope, lambent and mild; But she lived not to see life’s drear autumn day Fade slowly in silence and darkness away. In her spring-time of freshness, fragrance, and bloom, Disease stole her roses to strew on the tomb. Then often she looked at the heaven’s blue dome, And sighed, “I am tired. I want to go home.” My autumn of life is fast passing away, Bringing on the long night, and cold winter day; And I often remember her childish sigh, As she turned from my face to the twilight sky. When I sit on her grave, at sunset, alone, Her voice seems to speak in that tremulous tone; And longing I look up to heaven’s blue dome, Saying, “Father! I’m tired. I want to go home.”