I promised to tell of my humble old home, But my pen wanders off where my feet used to roam, So the home of my childhood I picture for you Must cover the rambles “my infancy knew.” Come, stand ’neath that maple with me, if you will: The manse, looking south from the brow of the hill, Has the River, the valley, “The Island” in view— (O! if mem’ry’s bright search-light could give it to you, And you, with my childhood’s own vision, could see The love-lighted beauty, that glowed there for me!) While eastward the valley-farms glint thro’ the trees, Whose grandeur had saved them to the thither-most shore, And hills, as a back ground of beauty for these, A richly-robed forest in stateliness bore; And this, to my child fancy, held up the skies Where the dawn, stealing in thro’ their bright rosy dyes, Peeped in at my window to waken me when The sun-gleams, aflash in the dew-spangled glen, Out rivaled Golconda in jewels and gold— When lambkins went frolicking down from the fold To nip the soft grass or to drink from the brook—Ah, there was a spot, just beyond where they drank, Where the brook cut the hill for its opposite bank, And nestled above was a shadowy nook With a rustic root-bench which a wind-warring tree Had thrown out to anchor its hold on the hill: There, glad as the laughter of innocent glee, Came the musical tinkle and play of the rill, A melody sweet, to that ærie of mine, Where, safe from intrusion as cliff dweller, I Heard, fresh from her lips, Nature’s message divine, Told sweetly, thro’ beauties, of earth and the sky.