Poems (Allen)/Away from Home

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

AWAY FROM HOME.

CROSS my life has dropped a dreary change;
These streets are foreign, and these skies are strange;
I hear no home-voice all the dull day through:
All hearts are alien, and all faces new.

The clouds are heavy, and the day is bleak;
In the wild wind the rattling windows creak.
I sit alone, and ponder mournfully
How strangely I am lost away from thee!

I miss the hand which gave me strength to strive;
I miss the love that kept my heart alive;
I miss the many masts, the free, fair sea:
I lose all things I love, in losing thee!

Alas, alas! since all the wide world through
Thou only wast most tender and most true!
And though I roam forever, still to me
The world is all alike, away from thee.

Ah, when the sunset goldens all the bay
And the white sails are resting from their play,
Walk where we used to walk, and think of me
Who have no longer either masts or sea.

Ah, thou, whose dear eyes watched the way I went,
Look toward the city of my banishment!
Let me not be forsaken utterly;—
Stretch thy fond arms, and hold me close to thee!