(Give me my lowly thatched cottage-)

For Joy finds Love grow bitter,
And spreads his wings to quit her,
At thought of birds that twitter
Beneath the roof-tree's straw-
Of birds that come for calling,
No fear or fright appalling,
When dews of dusk are falling,
Or daylight's draperies draw.

(Give me them, and the peace of mind-)

Give me these things then back, though the giving
Be at cost of earth's garner of gold;

There is no life without these worth living,
No treasure where these are not told.
For the heart give the hope that it knows not,
Give the balm for the burn of the breast-
For the soul and the mind that repose not,
Oh, give us a rest!

III

(As Mr. Francis Bret Harte might have woven it into a touching tale of a western gentleman in a red shirt.)

Brown o' San Juan,

Stranger, I'm Brown.

Come up this mornin' from 'Frisco-
Be'n a-saltin' my specie-stacks down.

Be'n a-knockin' around,

Fer a man from San Juan,

Putty consid'able frequent

Jes' catch onter that streak o' the dawn!

Right thar lies my home

Right thar in the red

I could slop over, stranger, in po'try

Would spread out old Shakspoke cold dead.

Home Sweet Home with Variations.

501

Stranger, you freeze to this: there ain't no kinder gin-palace,
Nor no variety-show lays over a man's own rancho.
Maybe it hain't no style, but the Queen in the Tower o'

London,

Ain't got naathin' I'd swop for that house over thar on the hill-side.

Thar is my ole gal, 'n' the kids, 'n' the rest o' my live-stock; Thar my Remington hangs, and thar there's a griddle-cake br'ilin'

For the two of us, pard-and thar, I allow, the heavens
Smile more friendly-like than on any other locality.

Stranger, nowhere else I don't take no satisfaction.

Gimme my ranch, 'n' them friendly old Shanghai chickensI brung the original pair f'm the States in eighteen-'n'

fifty

Gimme me them and the feelin' of solid domestic comfort.

Yer parding, young man

But this landscape a kind

Er flickers-I 'low 'twuz the po'try-
I thought that my eyes hed gone blind.

Take that pop from my belt!

Hi, thar!-gimme yer han'

Or I'll kill myself-Lizzie-she's left me-
Gone off with a purtier man!

Thar, I'll quit-the ole gal

An' the kids-run away!

I be derned! Howsomever, come in, pard

The griddle-cake's thar, anyway.

IV

(As Austin Dobson might have translated it from Horace, if it had ever occurred to Horace to write it.)

RONDEAU

At home alone, O Nomades,

Although Mæcenas' marble frieze

Stand not between you and the sky,
Nor Persian luxury supply

Its rosy surfeit, find ye ease.

Tempt not the far Egean breeze;

With home-made wine and books that please,
To duns and bores the door deny,
At home, alone.

Strange joys may lure. Your deities
Smile here alone. Oh, give me these:
Low eaves, where birds familiar fly,
And peace of mind, and, fluttering by,
My Lydia's graceful draperies,

At home, alone.

V

(As it might have been constructed in 1744, Oliver Goldsmith, at 19, writing the first stanza, and Alexander Pope, at 52, the second.)

HOME! at the word, what blissful visions rise,
Lift us from earth, and draw us toward the skies;
'Mid mirag'd towers, or meretricious joys,
Although we roam, one thought the mind employs:
Or lowly hut, good friend, or loftiest dome,
Earth knows no spot so holy as our Home.
There, where affection warms the father's breast,
There is the spot of heav'n most surely blest.
Howe'er we search, though wandering with the wind
Through frigid Zembla, or the heats of Ind,
Not elsewhere may we seek, nor elsewhere know,
The light of heaven upon our dark below.

When from our dearest hope and haven reft,
Delight nor dazzles, nor is luxury left,
We long, obedient to our nature's law,
To see again our hovel thatched with straw:

Home Sweet Home with Variations

See birds that know our avenaceous store
Stoop to our hand, and thence repleted soar: .
But, of all hopes the wanderer's soul that share,
His pristine peace of mind's his final prayer.

503

VI

(As Walt Whitman might have written all around it.)

I

You over there, young man with the guide-book, red-bound, covered flexibly with red linen,

Come here, I want to talk with you; I, Walt, the Manhattanese, citizen of these States, call you.

Yes, and the courier, too, smirking, smug-mouthed, with oil'd hair; a garlicky look about him generally; him, too, I take in, just as I would a coyote or a king, or a toad-stool, or a ham-sandwich, or anything, or anybody else in the world.

Where are you going?

You want to see Paris, to eat truffles, to have a good time; in Vienna, London, Florence, Monaco, to have a good time; you want to see Venice.

Come with me. I will give you a good time; I will give you all the Venice you want, and most of the Paris.

I, Walt, I call to you. I am all on deck! Come and loafe with me! Let me tote you around by your elbow and show you things.

You listen to my ophicleide!

Home!

Home, I celebrate. I elevate my fog-whistle, inspir'd by the

thought of home.

Come in!-take a front seat; the jostle of the crowd not minding; there is room enough for all of you.

This is my exhibition-it is the greatest show on earththere is no charge for admission.

All you have to pay me is to take in my romanza.

II

1. The brown-stone house; the father coming home worried from a bad day's business; the wife meets him in the marble pav'd vestibule; she throws her arms about him; she presses him close to her; she looks him full in the face with affectionate eyes; the frown from his brow disappearing.

Darling, she says, Johnny has fallen down and cut his head; the cook is going away, and the boiler leaks. 2. The mechanic's dark little third-story room, seen in a

flash from the Elevated Railway train; the sewingmachine in a corner; the small cook-stove; the whole family eating cabbage around a kerosene lamp; of the clatter and roar and groaning wail of the Elevated train unconscious; of the smell of the cabbage unconscious.

Me, passant, in the train, of the cabbage not quite so unconscious.

3. The French Flat; the small rooms, all right-angles, unindividual; the narrow halls; the gaudy, cheap decorations everywhere.

The janitor and the cook exchanging compliments up and down the elevator-shaft; the refusal to send up more coal, the solid splash of the water upon his head, the language he sends up the shaft, the triumphant laughter of the cook, to her kitchen retiring.

4. The widow's small house in the suburbs of the city; the widow's boy coming home from his first day down. town; he is flushed with happiness and pride; he is no longer a school-boy, he is earning money; he takes on the airs of a man and talks learnedly of business. 5. The room in the third-class boarding-house; the mean little hard-coal fire, the slovenly Irish servant-girl making it, the ashes on the hearth, the faded furniture, the private provender hid away in the closet, the dreary backyard out the window; the young girl at the glass, with her mouth full of hairpins, doing up her hair to go downstairs and flirt with the young fellows in the parlor.