The Song of the Exile
Blow, blow, ye winds, from the wide blue sea!
Oh, cool the heat of this fevered brow,
And still this heart with such melody
As your fluttering wings are wafting now!
Bear on, bear on, from that distant shore,
The loving tones of a household band
Whose cherished, forms I see no more,
Ye voices dim from my fatherland!
Such sad, sweet thoughts to me ye bring
Of my own far home with its ivied walls,
Of the vine-wreathed porch, where the zephyr sings
Through the rustling leaves, and the sunbeam falls—
Of the threshold stone, and the open door,
Of the kindred forms that gathered there,
At the stilly eve full hearts to pour,
In a gush of song on the listening air—
Of the noisy flow of the little brook,
Whose mossy banks our footsteps haunted;
Of winds which half their sweetness took
From fragrant bowers our hands had planted.
Fleta Forrester.