Once I could sit by the fire hourlong when the dripping
eaves

sang cheer to the shelter’d, and listen, and know that the
woods drank full,

and think of the morn that was coming and how the
freshen’d leaves

would glint in the sun and the dusk beneath would be
bright and cool.

Now, when I hear, I am cold within: for my mind drifts
wide

where the blessing is shed for naught on the salt waste
of the sea,

on the valleys that hold no rest and the hills that may not
abide:

and the fire loses its warmth and my home is far from
me.