← Table of contents
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, September 1850

Act 5 — OUTWARD BOUND.

Reading edition

———

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

———

Fare ye well, our native valleys,

And our native hills farewell;

Though we part, your blessed memory

Shall be with us like a spell:—

For with you are souls in silence

Breathing for us hopes and prayers,

Loving eyes that weep in secret

Gazing on the vacant chairs.

Tender hearts made dear unto us

By unnumbered sacred ties,

Bend at eve their tearful vision

To the stars that o’er us rise.

There are children, darling children,

In the April of their years,

In their play they cease and call us,

And their laughter melts to tears.

There are maidens overshadowed

With a transient cloud of May,

There are wives who sit in sorrow

Like a rainy summer day.

There our parents sit dejected

In the darkness of their grief,

Mourning their last hope departed

As the autumn mourns its leaf.

But the prayers of these are with us

Till the winds that fill the sails

Seem to be the breath of blessings

From our native hills and vales.

Then farewell, the breeze is with us,

And our vessel ploughs the foam;

God, who guides the good ship seaward

Will protect the loved at home.

Illustration from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, September 1850

HE COMES NOT. Painted by W. Brown and Engraved expressly for Graham's Magazine by W. Holl

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings