Here are my favorite poems about longing categorized:
- Short poems about longing for someone
- Poems about longing for someone
- Poems about longing for home
So if you want the best poems about longing, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s get right to it!
- 53 Pensive Poems About Melancholy
- 117 Crushing Poems About Disappointment
- 105 Dark Lonely Poems
- 49 Stinging Poems About Missing Someone
Wistful Poems About Longing
Step into the realm of wistful reverie where poems become portals to the heart’s deepest longings.
Immerse yourself in the world of poems about longing, where emotions swirl like a gentle breeze and hearts speak in whispers.
From tiny verses of desire to lines that will take you through the corridors of homesickness, our selection will take you on a heart-wrenching journey through the sweet ache of missing what’s dear.
We’ve got a wide spectrum of time-honored poems that will transport you, touch your soul, and leave you longing for more.
Get your hearts ready and settle into the embrace of these poignant verses that will ignite the sweet melancholy of longing within you.
Let’s jump right in!
My #1 Favorite Poem About Longing
“I Am A Thirst, But Not For Wine” by Mathilde Blind
I am a thirst, but not for wine;
The drink I long for is divine,
Poured only from your eyes in mine.
I hunger, but the bread I want,
Of which my blood and brain are scant,
Is your sweet speech, for which I pant.
I am a-cold, and lagging lame,
Life creeps along my languid frame;
Your love would fan it into flame.
Heaven’s in that little word-your love!
It makes my heart coo like a dove,
My tears fall as I think thereof.
Why “I Am A Thirst, But Not For Wine” Is My Favorite Poem
The poem “I Am A Thirst, But Not For Wine” by Mathilde Blind is my favorite as it resonated with one’s thirst for something that no drink can ever quench- not even the most expensive wine in the world.
It made me reflect on the things and people that I longed for before and though I don’t yearn for the same things anymore, I know that they kept me going even when things get rough.
They say that longing is a constant agony humans have to go through long as they live.
Longing, especially for worldly things, sometimes makes me but often times breaks me.
But then, what would life be if I don’t long for anything?
Short Poems About Longing for Someone
Get swept by the wave of longing with these touching pocket-sized poems painstakingly selected for your pleasure.
These short verses, imbued with the essence of melancholic yearning, beckon us to explore the depths of emotions that transcend the ordinary human experience.
From “Love’s Way” by Martin Swift
Yearning and desolate heart,
Heart of the sea-devoured, unfruitful springs,
Brooding, inactive heart, awake, awake!
For thee is hope, for thee
The silvery bugles call,
Swells the white sail, the silver- winged shaft
Flashes to theeward, and the star of love
Glows in the balmy night,
The melting, amorous night!
“On Himself” by Robert Herrick
Love-sick I am, and must endure
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
Ah me! I try; and trying, prove
No herbs have power to cure love.
Only one sovereign salve I know,
And that is death, the end of woe.
“The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring” by Anonymous
O western wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!
“Come” by Sara Teasdale
Come, when the pale moon like a petal
Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,
Come with arms outstretched to take me,
Come with lips pursed up to cling.
Come, for life is a frail moth flying,
Caught in the web of the years that pass,
And soon we two, so warm and eager,
Will be as the gray stones in the grass.
“Alone” by James Joyce
The noon’s greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.
The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name, her name,
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.
“Day And Night” by Sara Teasdale
In Warsaw in Poland
Half the world away,
The one I love best of all
Thought of me to-day;
I know, for I went
Winged as a bird,
In the wide flowing wind
His own voice I heard;
His arms were round me
In a ferny place,
I looked in the pool
And there was his face
But now it is night
And the cold stars say:
“Warsaw in Poland
Is half the world away.”
“Longing” by Sara Teasdale
I am not sorry for my soul
That it must go unsatisfied,
For it can live a thousand times,
Eternity is deep and wide.
I am not sorry for my soul,
But oh, my body that must go
Back to a little drift of dust
Without the joy it longed to know.
Poems About Longing for Someone
Enter a world where love and longing hold hands and feel the weight of a heart longing for its missing piece.
These verses, like whispers of desire carried on the wind, weave tales of hearts aflame with the irresistible ache for a distant soul.
“The End” by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)
If I could have put you in my heart,
If but I could have wrapped you in myself,
How glad I should have been!
And now the chart
Of memory unrolls again to me
The course of our journey here, before we had to part.
And oh, that you had never, never been
Some of your selves, my love, that some
Of your several faces I had never seen!
And still they come before me, and they go,
And I cry aloud in the moments that intervene.
And oh, my love, as I rock for you to-night,
And have not any longer any hope
To heal the suffering, or make requite
For all your life of asking and despair,
I own that some of me is dead to-night.
“Renouncement” by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight–
The thought of thee–and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,–
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
“Thora’s Song – (‘Ashtaroth’)” by Adam Lindsay Gordon
We severed in autumn early,
Ere the earth was torn by the plough;
The wheat and the oats and the barley
Are ripe for the harvest now.
We sunder’d one misty morning,
Ere the hills were dimm’d by the rain,
Through the flowers those hills adorning,
Thou comest not back again.
My heart is heavy and weary
With the weight of a weary soul;
The mid-day glare grows dreary,
And dreary the midnight scroll.
The corn-stalks sigh for the sickle,
‘Neath the load of the golden grain;
I sigh for a mate more fickle,
Thou comest not back again.
The warm sun riseth and setteth,
The night bringeth moist’ning dew,
But the soul that longeth forgetteth
The warmth and the moisture, too;
In the hot sun rising and setting
There is naught save feverish pain;
There are tears in the night-dews wetting,
Thou comest not back again.
Thy voice in mine ear still mingles
With the voices of whisp’ring trees;
Thy kiss on my cheek still tingles
At each kiss of the summer breeze;
While dreams of the past are thronging
For substance of shades in vain,
I am waiting, watching, and longing,
Thou comest not back again.
Waiting and watching ever,
Longing and lingering yet,
Leaves rustle and corn-stalks quiver,
Winds murmur and waters fret;
No answer they bring, no greeting,
No speech save that sad refrain,
Nor voice, save an echo repeating,
He cometh not back again.
“Absence” by Elizabeth Jennings
I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.
The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,
Singing an ecstasy I could not share,
Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in these
Pleasures there could not be a pain to bear
Or any discord shake the level breeze.
It was because the place was just the same
That made your absence seem a savage force,
For under all the gentleness there came
An earthquake tremor: Fountain, birds and grass
Were shaken by my thinking of your name.
“The Song of Wandering Aengus” by W. B. Yeats
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
“Still When Daylight.” by Thomas Moore
Still when daylight o’er the wave
Bright and soft its farewell gave,
I used to hear, while light was falling,
O’er the wave a sweet voice calling,
Mournfully at distance calling.
Ah! once how blest that maid would come,
To meet her sea-boy hastening home;
And thro’ the night those sounds repeating,
Hail his bark with joyous greeting,
Joyously his light bark greeting.
But, one sad night, when winds were high,
Nor earth, nor heaven could hear her cry.
She saw his boat come tossing over
Midnight’s wave,–but not her lover!
No, never more her lover.
And still that sad dream loath to leave,
She comes with wandering mind at eve,
And oft we hear, when night is falling,
Faint her voice thro’ twilight calling,
Mournfully at twilight calling.
“A Bygone Occasion (Song)” by Thomas Hardy
That night, that night,
That song, that song!
Will such again be evened quite
Through lifetimes long?
No mirth was shown
To outer seers,
But mood to match has not been known
In modern years.
O eyes that smiled,
O lips that lured;
That such would last was one beguiled
To think ensured!
That night, that night,
That song, that song;
O drink to its recalled delight,
Though tears may throng!
“Song” by Pol De Mont (Jethro Bithell, Translator)
Like a golden dream,
Hangs the last moonbeam
From the darkling trees and bushes,
Though the moon in the West
Now has gone to rest
Down behind the river rushes.
In such lingering wise Flit before mine eyes
Features that I loved and cherished;
My beloved is dead,
But, though years have fled,
In my soul she hath not perished.
As though here she were
Pain remembers her,
In my soul she changeth never;
Never from my heart
Shall my love depart,
She is shrined and worshipped there for ever!
“You That Were” by John Frederick Freeman
You that were
Half my life ere life was mine;
You that on my shape the sign
Set of yours;
You that my young lips did kiss
When your kiss summed up my bliss….
Ah, once more
You to kiss were all my bliss!
You whom I
Could forget—strange, could forget
Even for days (ah, now the fret
Of my grief!);
You who loved me though forgot;
Welcomed still, reproaching not….
Ah, that now
That forgetting were forgot!
You that now
On my shoulder as I go
Put your hand that wounds me so;
You that brush
Yet my lips with that one last
Kiss that bitters all things past….
How shall I
Yet endure that kiss the last?
You that are
Where the feet of my blind grief
Find you not, nor find relief;
You that are
Where my thought flying after you
Broken falls and flies anew,
Now you’re gone
My love accusing aches for you.
“Absence” by William Lisle Bowles
How shall I cheat the heavy hours, of thee
Deprived, of thy kind looks and converse sweet,
Now that the waving grove the dark storms beat,
And wintry winds sad sounding o’er the lea,
Scatter the sallow leaf! I would believe,
Thou, at this hour, with tearful tenderness
Dost muse on absent images, and press
In thought my hand, and say: Oh do not grieve,
Friend of my heart! at wayward fortune’s power;
One day we shall be happy, and each hour
Of pain forget, cheered by the summer ray.
These thoughts beguile my sorrow for thy loss,
And, as the aged pines their dark heads toss,
Oft steal the sense of solitude away.
So am I sadly soothed, yet do I cast
A wishful glance upon the seasons past,
And think how different was the happy tide,
When thou, with looks of love, wert smiling by my side.
“Yearning” by Heinrich Heine (Edgar Alfred Bowring, Translator)
With sweetheart on arm, all my comrades with joy
Beneath the linden trees move;
But I, alas, poor desolate boy,
In utter solitude rove.
Mine eye grows dim, my heart is oppress’d,
When happy lovers I see;
For a sweetheart by me is also possess’d,
But, alas, far distant is she.
I have borne it for years, with a heart fit to break,
But no longer can bear with the pain;
So pack up my bundle, my pilgrim’s staff take,
And start on my travels again.
And onward I go for hundreds of miles,
Till I come to a city renown’d;
A noble river beneath it smiles,
With three stately towers ’tis crown’d.
And now my late sorrows no longer annoy,
Made happy at last is my love;
For there, with my sweetheart on arm, I with joy
Can beneath the sweet linden trees rove.
“After Two Days” by Eric Mackay
Another night has turned itself to day,
Another day has melted into eve,
And lo! again I tread the measured way
Of word and thought, the twain to interweave,
As flowers absorb the rays that they receive.
And, all along the woodland where I stray,
I think of thee, and Nature keeps me gay,
And sorrow soothes the soul it would bereave.
Nor will I fear that thou, so far apart,
So dear to me, so fair, and so benign,
Wilt un-desire the fealty of a heart
Which evermore is pledg’d to thee and thine,
And turns to thee, in regions where thou art,
To hymn the praises of thy face divine!
“Sonnets From the Cherokee 03” by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
What is this nameless something that I want,
Forever groping blindly, without light,—
A ghost of pain that does forever haunt
My days, and make my heart eternal night?
I think it is your face I so long for,
Your eyes that read my soul at one warm glance;
Your lips that I may touch with mine no more
Have left me in their stead a thrusting lance
Of fire that burns my lips and sears my heart
As all the dreary wanton years wear through
Their hopeless dragging days. No lover’s art
Can lift full, heavy sorrow from my view
Or still my restless longing, purge my hate,
Because I learned I loved you, dear, too late.
“Desire” by Helen Hoyt
Once you were always calling me,
Calling me when I could not answer,
Urging me where I could not follow—
So that I wished I had been born without desire,
As a stone.
But now many days you have left me.
And in the silence I have learned your meaning.
For a part of me is gone when you are gone;
I am less
And the world is less.
O let me have my longing back again!
Now gladly I will bear it;
Gladly I will hold it to me,
Though without release;
Always.
For what would be the pride of the sun itself
With its light gone?
O kindle me again, desire.
Return to me.
Return.
“Absence” by William Lisle Bowles
There is strange music in the stirring wind,
When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone
To the dark wood’s cold covert thou art gone,
Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined
Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere.
If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,
Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring,
With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;
Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn
Or evening thou hast shared, afar shall stray.
O Spring, return! return, auspicious May!
But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,
If she return not with thy cheering ray,
Who from these shades is gone, far, far away.
“Little Memories” by Nora May French
My thoughts of you … although I strain and sigh
At stubborn roots, at boughs that tear my face,
No plants in all my garden grow so high,
Nor fill with sturdier life a wider place.
It pleases me, and wakes an old delight,
To go with wordy shears in idle times
And trim them as a patient gardener might,
Clipping the thorny boughs to curves and rhymes.
If these were all, opposing strength with strength
To make my hurt an easier thing to bear;
If these alone usurped my garden’s length,
It would not be so hard—I should not care.
But close against the ground, oh, small and weak!
The trodden flowers, the little memories, grow.
Uprooting fingers press them to my cheek….
Dear heart, I love you, and I miss you so.
“Alone” by Robert J. Burdett
I miss you, my darling, my darling,
The embers burn low on the hearth:
And still is the stir of the household,
And hushed is the voice of its mirth;
The rain splashes fast on the terrace,
The wind past the lattices moans,
The midnight chimes out from the Minster,
And I am alone.
I want you, my darling, my darling,
I’m tired with care and with fret;
I would nestle in silence beside you,
And all but your presence forget,
In the hush of the happiness given
To those who through trusting have grown
To the fulness of love in contentment:
But I am alone.
I call you, my darling, my darling!
My voice echoes back on the heart;
I stretch my arms to you in longing,
And lo! they fall empty apart;
I whisper the sweet words you taught me,
The words that we only have known,
Till the blank of the dumb air is bitter,
For I am alone.
I need you, my darling, my darling!
With its yearnings my very heart aches;
The load that divides us weighs harder;
I shrink from the jar that it makes,
Old sorrows rise up to beset me;
Old doubts make my spirit their own.
Oh, come through the darkness and save me,
For I am alone!
“To—” by Frances Anne Butler
Is it a sin to wish that I may meet thee
In that dim world whither our spirits stray,
When sleep and darkness follow life and day?
Is it a sin, that there my voice should greet thee
With all that love that I must die concealing?
Will my tear-laden eyes sin in revealing
The agony that preys upon my soul?
Is’t not enough through the long, loathsome day,
To hold each look, and word, in stern control?
May I not wish the staring sunlight gone,
Day and its thousand torturing moments done,
And prying sights and sounds of men away?
Oh, still and silent Night! when all things sleep,
Locked in thy swarthy breast my secret keep:
Come, with thy vision’d hopes and blessings now!
I dream the only happiness I know.
“When Shall We Meet Again?” by John Clare
How many times Spring blossoms meek
Have faded on the land
Since last I kissed that pretty cheek,
Caressed that happy hand.
Eight time the green’s been painted white
With daisies in the grass
Since I looked on thy eyes so bright,
And pressed my bonny lass.
The ground lark sung about the farms,
The blackbird in the wood,
When fast locked in each other’s arms
By hedgerow thorn we stood.
It was a pleasant Sabbath day,
The sun shone bright and round,
His light through dark oaks passed, and lay
Like gold upon the ground.
How beautiful the blackbird sung,
And answered soft the thrush;
And sweet the pearl-like dew-drops hung
Upon the white thorn bush.
O happy day, eight years ago!
We parted without pain:
The blackbird sings, primroses blow;
When shall we meet again?
“Absence” by Maurice Henry Hewlett
When she had left us but a little while
Methought I sensed her spirit here and there
About my house: upon the empty stair
Her robe brusht softly; o’er her chamber still
There lay her fragrant presence to beguile
Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair,
And praying felt her hand laid on my hair,
Felt her sweet breath, and guess’d her wistful smile.
Then thro’ my tears I lookt about the room,
But she was gone. I heard my heart beat fast;
The street was silent; I could not see her now.
Sorrow and I took up our load, and past
To where our station was with heads bent low,
And autumn’s death-moan shiver’d thro’ the gloom.
“Lost Love” by Robert von Ranke Graves
His eyes are quickened so with grief,
He can watch a grass or leaf
Every instant grow; he can
Clearly through a flint wall see,
Or watch the startled spirit flee
From the throat of a dead man.
Across two counties he can hear,
And catch your words before you speak.
The woodlouse or the maggot’s weak
Clamour rings in his sad ear;
And noise so slight it would surpass
Credence: drinking sound of grass,
Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth
Chumbling holes in cloth:
The groan of ants who undertake
Gigantic loads for honour’s sake,
Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin:
Whir of spiders when they spin,
And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs
Of idle grubs and flies.
This man is quickened so with grief,
He wanders god-like or like thief
Inside and out, below, above,
Without relief seeking lost love.
“Sonnet: My Heart Is Sick With Longing, Tho’ I Feed” by Thomas Hood
My heart is sick with longing, tho’ I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept – forgetting his old speed:
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial’s face,
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed.
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart,
With aching hands and lingering of eyes.
Alas, alas! that we must learn hours’ flight
By the same light of love that makes them bright!
“Sleepless” by Sara Teasdale
If I could have your arms tonight,
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.
The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard
Makes me more alone.
If you were here, if you were only here,
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless as the rain.
“Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXX” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I see thine image through my tears to-night,
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
Refer the cause?—Belovëd, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.
Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,
As now these tears come—falling hot and real?
“Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXIX” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly
Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,
Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.
“Absence” by Walter Savage Landor
Here, ever since you went abroad,
If there be change no change I see:
I only walk our wonted road,
The road is only walk’d by me.
Yes; I forgot; a change there is,
Was it of that you bade me tell?
I catch at times, at times I miss
The sight, the tone, I know so well.
Only two months since you stood here?
Two shortest months? Then tell me why
Voices are harsher than they were,
And tears are longer ere they dry.
“When Love Goes” by Sara Teasdale
I
O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.
“Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead.”
II
Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?
“The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee.”
“Love-Thoughts In The Night” by Pol De Mont (Jethro Bithell, Translator)
Where shall you lay the grievous sighs
That I sigh for you?
Where shall you lay my love-sick thoughts,
When I fly to you?
Show me, O show me pity!
It is so bleak in the deep of night,
And they wing to you their timid flight
Through the chilly streets of the city.
Open, open your window at last,
Welcome them in from the cold night blast …
Then shut the window and lock the door …
In your night- dress let them hide,
Let them slumber by your side,
Once … —and nevermore?
Where shall you lay the songs I sing,
The songs I sing to you?
Where shall you lay the soul I bring,
The soul I bring to you?
In your night-dress let it hide,
Let it slumber by your side,
As though it were a little child
Grant it, grant it, between the pair
Of your warm breasts, the sweet spot where
Your heart beats wild.
Let your soft hand over it glide,
Cover it close with your deep tender hair …
There let it rest, just one night- tide …
At last, at last, after its long despair.
Soothe its long, long grief while it rests,
Sing o’er and o’er:
“Sleep, little soul, between my breasts …”
Once . . . —and nevermore?
“Longings.” by George W. Doneghy
I.
Gim me back my stone-bruised heel,
And them tow-linen pants,
An’ that old pole an’ line an’ reel,
An’ all them boyhood ha’nts,
An’ that old hat I used to wear,
That didn’t hav’ no crown,
An’ that same crop uv yeller hair–
Sun-burnt on top ter brown–
An’ them playmates I used ter know,
An’ loved like very brothers–
An’ you kin let the old world go
An’ giv’ its wealth ter others!
II.
Gim me back one gallus, too,
That buttoned with a peg,
An’ them blamed ticks that burrowed through
The skin uv either leg,
An’ that old single-barrel gun,
As crooked as a rail,
An’ that same dog that used ter run
The molly cotton-tail,
An’ lem me hav’ the tops I spun–
The kites that I hav’ sailed–
An’ then at last, when life is done,
Who’d keer if it had failed?
“Longing.” by Friedrich Schiller
Could I from this valley drear,
Where the mist hangs heavily,
Soar to some more blissful sphere,
Ah! how happy should I be!
Distant hills enchant my sight,
Ever young and ever fair;
To those hills I’d take my flight
Had I wings to scale the air.
Harmonies mine ear assail,
Tunes that breathe a heavenly calm;
And the gently-sighing gale
Greets me with its fragrant balm.
Peeping through the shady bowers,
Golden fruits their charms display.
And those sweetly-blooming flowers
Ne’er become cold winter’s prey.
In you endless sunshine bright,
Oh! what bliss ‘twould be to dwell!
How the breeze on yonder height
Must the heart with rapture swell!
Yet the stream that hems my path
Checks me with its angry frown,
While its waves, in rising wrath,
Weigh my weary spirit down.
See – a bark is drawing near,
But, alas, the pilot fails!
Enter boldly – wherefore fear?
Inspiration fills its sails,
Faith and courage make thine own, –
Gods ne’er lend a helping-hand;
‘Tis by magic power alone
Thou canst reach the magic land!
“Longing.” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What pulls at my heart so?
What tells me to roam?
What drags me and lures me
From chamber and home?
How round the cliffs gather
The clouds high in air!
I fain would go thither,
I fain would be there!
The sociable flight
Of the ravens comes back;
I mingle amongst them,
And follow their track.
Round wall and round mountain
Together we fly;
She tarries below there,
I after her spy.
Then onward she wanders,
My flight I wing soon
To the wood fill’d with bushes,
A bird of sweet tune.
She tarries and hearkens,
And smiling, thinks she:
“How sweetly he’s singing!
He’s singing to me!”
The heights are illum’d
By the fast setting sun;
The pensive fair maiden
Looks thoughtfully on;
She roams by the streamlet,
O’er meadows she goes,
And darker and darker
The pathway fast grows.
I rise on a sudden,
A glimmering star;
“What glitters above me,
So near and so far?”
And when thou with wonder
Hast gazed on the light,
I fall down before thee,
Entranced by thy sight!
“The Long Ago.” by Jean Blewett
O life has its seasons joyous and drear,
Its summer sun and its winter snow,
But the fairest of all, I tell you, dear,
Was the sweet old spring of the long ago –
The ever and ever so long ago –
When we walked together among the flowers,
When the world with beauty was all aglow.
O the rain and dew! O the shine and showers
Of the sweet old spring of the long ago!
The ever and ever so long ago.
A hunger for all of the past delight
Is stirred by the winds that softly blow.
Can you spare me a thought from heaven to-night
For the sweet old spring of the long ago? –
The ever and ever so long ago.
“Longing” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
I envy seas whereon he rides,
I envy spokes of wheels
Of chariots that him convey,
I envy speechless hills
That gaze upon his journey;
How easy all can see
What is forbidden utterly
As heaven, unto me!
I envy nests of sparrows
That dot his distant eaves,
The wealthy fly upon his pane,
The happy, happy leaves
That just abroad his window
Have summer’s leave to be,
The earrings of Pizarro
Could not obtain for me.
I envy light that wakes him,
And bells that boldly ring
To tell him it is noon abroad, —
Myself his noon could bring,
Yet interdict my blossom
And abrogate my bee,
Lest noon in everlasting night
Drop Gabriel and me.
“If She but Knew” by Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy
If she but knew that I am weeping
Still for her sake,
That love and sorrow grow with keeping
Till they must break
My heart that breaking will adore her,
Be hers and die;
If she might hear me once implore her,
Would she not sigh?
If she did but know that it would save me
Her voice to hear,
Saying she pitied me, forgave me,
Must she forbear?
If she were told that I was dying,
Would she be dumb?
Could she content herself with sighing
Would she not come?
“Longing” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
If you could sit with me beside the sea to-day,
And whisper with me sweetest dreamings o’er and o’er;
I think I should not find the clouds so dim and gray,
And not so loud the waves complaining at the shore.
If you could sit with me upon the shore to-day,
And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old,
I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray,
Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold.
If you could walk with me upon the strand to-day,
And tell me that my longing love had won your own,
I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away,
And I could give back laughter for the Ocean’s moan!
“Longing” by George MacDonald
My heart is full of inarticulate pain,
And beats laborious. Cold ungenial looks
Invade my sanctuary. Men of gain,
Wise in success, well-read in feeble books,
No nigher come, I pray: your air is drear;
‘Tis winter and low skies when ye appear.
Beloved, who love beauty and fair truth,
Come nearer me; too near ye cannot come;
Make me an atmosphere with your sweet youth;
Give me your souls to breathe in, a large room;
Speak not a word, for, see, my spirit lies
Helpless and dumb; shine on me with your eyes.
O all wide places, far from feverous towns;
Great shining seas; pine forests; mountains wild;
Rock-bosomed shores; rough heaths, and sheep-cropt downs;
Vast pallid clouds; blue spaces undefiled–
Room! give me room! give loneliness and air–
Free things and plenteous in your regions fair!
White dove of David, flying overhead,
Golden with sunlight on thy snowy wings,
Outspeeding thee my longing thoughts are fled
To find a home afar from men of things;
Where in his temple, earth o’erarched with sky,
God’s heart to mine may speak, my heart reply.
O God of mountains, stars, and boundless spaces,
O God of freedom and of joyous hearts,
When thy face looketh forth from all men’s faces,
There will be room enough in crowded marts!
Brood thou around me, and the noise is o’er,
Thy universe my closet with shut door.
Heart, heart, awake! The love that loveth all
Maketh a deeper calm than Horeb’s cave.
God in thee, can his children’s folly gall?
Love may be hurt, but shall not love be brave?–
Thy holy silence sinks in dews of balm;
Thou art my solitude, my mountain-calm!
“Longing” by George MacDonald
Away from the city’s herds!
Away from the noisy street!
Away from the storm of words,
Where hateful and hating meet!
Away from the vapour grey,
That like a boding of ill
Is blotting the morning gay,
And gathers and darkens still!
Away from the stupid book!
For, like the fog’s weary rest,
With anger dull it fills each nook
Of my aching and misty breast.
Over some shining shore,
There hangeth a space of blue;
A parting ‘mid thin clouds hoar
Where the sunlight is falling through.
The glad waves are kissing the shore
Rejoice, and tell it for ever;
The boat glides on, while its oar
Is flashing out of the river.
Oh to be there with thee!
Thou and I only, my love!
The sparkling, sands and the sea!
And the sunshine of God above!
“To Mary” by Charles Wolfe
If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot, when by thy side,
That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past
The time would e’er be o’er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!
And still upon that face I look,
And think ’twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain.
But when I speak—thou dost not say
What thou ne’er left’st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary, thou art dead!
If thou wouldst stay, e’en as thou art,
All cold and all serene—
I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been!
While e’en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there—I lay thee in thy grave—
And I am now alone!
I do not think, where’er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart
In thinking too of thee:
Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne’er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!
“A Widow’s Hymn” by George Wither
How near me came the hand of Death,
When at my side he struck my dear,
And took away the precious breath
Which quicken’d my belovèd peer!
How helpless am I thereby made!
By day how grieved, by night how sad!
And now my life’s delight is gone,
—Alas! how am I left alone!
The voice which I did more esteem
Than music in her sweetest key,
Those eyes which unto me did seem
More comfortable than the day;
Those now by me, as they have been,
Shall never more be heard or seen;
But what I once enjoy’d in them
Shall seem hereafter as a dream.
Lord! keep me faithful to the trust
Which my dear spouse reposed in me:
To him now dead preserve me just
In all that should performèd be!
For though our being man and wife
Extendeth only to this life,
Yet neither life nor death should end
The being of a faithful friend.
“The Voice” by Thomas Hardy
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
“Longing” by Madison Julius Cawein
When rathe wind-flowers many peer
All rain filled at blue April skies,
As on one smiles one’s lady dear
With the big tear-drops in her eyes;
When budded May-apples, I wis,
Be hidden by lone greenwood creeks,
Be bashful as her cheeks we kiss,
Be waxen as her dimpled cheeks;
Then do I pine for happier skies,
Shy wild-flowers fair by hill and burn;
As one for one’s sweet lady’s eyes,
And her white cheeks might pine and yearn.
“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
“Absence” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Good-night, my love, for I have dreamed of thee
In waking dreams, until my soul is lost—
Is lost in passion’s wide and shoreless sea,
Where, like a ship, unruddered, it is tost
Hither and thither at the wild waves’ will.
There is no potent Master’s voice to still
This newer, more tempestuous Galilee!
The stormy petrels of my fancy fly
In warning course across the darkening green,
And, like a frightened bird, my heart doth cry
And seek to find some rock of rest between
The threatening sky and the relentless wave.
It is not length of life that grief doth crave,
But only calm and peace in which to die.
Here let me rest upon this single hope,
For oh, my wings are weary of the wind,
And with its stress no more may strive or cope.
One cry has dulled mine ears, mine eyes are blind,—
Would that o’er all the intervening space,
I might fly forth and see thee face to face.
I fly; I search, but, love, in gloom I grope.
Fly home, far bird, unto thy waiting nest;
Spread thy strong wings above the wind-swept sea.
Beat the grim breeze with thy unruffled breast
Until thou sittest wing to wing with me.
Then, let the past bring up its tales of wrong;
We shall chant low our sweet connubial song,
Till storm and doubt and past no more shall be!
“Alive” by Winifred M. Letts
Because you live, though out of sight and reach,
I will, so help me God, live bravely too,
Taking the road with laughter and gay speech,
Alert, intent to give life all its due.
I will delight my soul with many things,
The humours of the street and books and plays,
Great rocks and waves winnowed by seagulls’ wings,
Star-jewelled Winter nights, gold harvest days.
I will for your sake praise what I have missed,
The sweet content of long-united lives,
The sunrise joy of lovers who have kissed,
Children with flower-faces, happy wives.
And last I will praise Death who gives anew
Brave life adventurous and love—and you.
“A Mother To The Sea” by Charles Hamilton Musgrove
You are blue, you are blue like the sky,
Cruel and cold and blue,
And I turn from you, voiceless sea,
To a sky that is voiceless, too.
Upward the vast blue arch,
Downward the blue abyss,
With a line of foam where your lips
Meet in a passionless kiss.
But the silence is breaking my heart,
And tears cannot comfort me
With God in His cold blue sky,
And my boy in the cold blue sea.
“Longing” by Matthew Arnold
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
“A Late Good Night” by Robert Fuller Murray
My lamp is out, my task is done,
And up the stair with lingering feet
I climb. The staircase clock strikes one.
Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!
My solitary room I gain.
A single star makes incomplete
The blackness of the window pane.
Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!
Dim and more dim its sparkle grows,
And ere my head the pillows meet,
My lids are fain themselves to close.
Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!
My lips no other words can say,
But still they murmur and repeat
To you, who slumber far away,
Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!
“Longing.” by Emma Lazarus
Look westward o’er the steaming rain-washed slopes,
Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold
Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,
Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,
In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,
Floating like dreams, and melting silently,
In the blue upper regions of pure sky.
The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,
And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth’s and nature’s best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.
“If I Could Hold Your Hands” by Anonymous
If I could hold your hands to-night,
Just for a little while, and know
That only I, of all the world,
Possessed them so.
A slender shape in that old chair,
If I could see you here to-night,
Between me and the twilight pale—
So light and frail.
Your cool white dress, its folding lost
In one broad sweep of shadow grey;
Your weary head just drooped aside,
That sweet old way.
Bowed like a flower-cup dashed with rain,
The darkness crossing half your face,
And just the glimmer of a smile
For one to trace.
If I could see your eyes that reach
Far out into the farthest sky,
Where past the trail of dying suns
The old years lie.
Or touch your silent lips to-night,
And steal the sadness from their smile,
And find the last kiss they have kept
This weary while!
If it could be—Oh, all in vain
The restless trouble of my soul
Sets, as the great tides of the moon,
Toward your control!
In vain the longings of the lips,
The eye’s desire and the pain;
The hunger of the heart—O love,
Is it in vain?
“Three Years Old” by A. Ethelwyn Wetherald
What is it like, I wonder, to roam
Down through the tall grass hidden quite?
To feel very far away from home
When the dear house is out of sight?
To want to play with the broken moon
In the star garden of the skies?
To sleep through twilight eves of June
Beneath the sound of lullabies?
To hold up hurts for all to see,
Sob at imaginary harms,
To clasp in welcome a father’s knee,
And fit so well to a mother’s arms?
To have life bounded by one dull road,
A wood and a pond, and to feel no lack,
To gaze with pleasure upon a toad,
And caress a mud-turtle’s horny back?
To follow the robin’s cheerful hop
With all the salt small hands can hold,
And plead in vain for it to stop—
What is it like to be three years old?
Ah, once I knew, but ’twas long ago;
I try to recall it in vain—in vain!
And now I know I shall never know
What it is to be a child again.
“Fragrant Memories” by Victor De Meijere (Jethro Bithell, Translator)
Although so pure I saw you in your wealth
Ofgolden hair, wherein I thought to lie
So that my passion’s burning pain should die,
While sacred love should nurse me back to health, —
Although I loved you more than lips could speak,
I said: Not till my heart with cooler blood
Knew its well- being in a stanchless flood
Of mad and rapturous music, would I seek.
But now your love has waned and withered, now
I have forgotten, and only memory
Brings back your face-my heart is nigh to break.
For memories will not wholly set me free,
But frostily hang on my pallid brow.
Dear, would you kiss my cheeks for old times’ sake?
“Waiting and Wishing” by Henry Kendall
I loiter by this surging sea,
Here, by this surging, sooming sea,
Here, by this wailing, wild-faced sea,
Dreaming through the dreamy night;
Yearning for a strange delight!
Will it ever, ever, ever fly to me,
By this surging sea,
By this surging, sooming sea,
By this wailing, wild-faced sea?
I know some gentle spirit lives,
Some loving, lonely spirit lives,
Some melancholy spirit lives,
Walking o’er the earth for me,
Searching round the world for me!
Will she ever, ever, ever hither come?
Where the waters roam,
Where the sobbing waters roam!
Where the raving waters roam!
All worn and wasted by the storms,
All gapped and fractured by the storms,
All split and splintered by the storms,
Overhead the caverns groan,
Gloomy, ghastly caverns groan! –
Will she ever, ever, ever fill this heart?
Peace, O longing heart!
Peace, O longing, beating heart!
Peace, O beating, weary heart!
“The Blonde Maiden” by Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
Though she depart, a vision flitting,
If I these thoughts in words exhale:
I love you, you blonde maiden, sitting
Within your pure white beauty’s veil.
I love you for your blue eyes dreaming,
Like moonlight moving over snow,
And ‘mid the far-off forests beaming
On something hid I may not know.
I love this forehead’s fair perfection
Because it stands so starry-clear,
In flood of thought sees its reflection
And wonders at the image near.
I love these locks in riot risen
Against the hair-net’s busy bands;
To free them from their pretty prison
Their sylphs entice my eyes and hands.
I love this figure’s supple swinging
In rhythm of its bridal song,
Of strength and life-joy daily singing
With youthful yearnings deep and long.
I love this foot so lightly bearing
The glory of sure victory
Through youth’s domain of merry daring
To meet first-love that hers shall be.
I love these hands, these lips enchanting,
With them the God of love’s allied,
With them the apple-prize is granting,
But guards them, too, lest aught betide.
I love you and must say it ever,
Although you heed not what you’ve heard,
But flee and answer: maidens never
May put their trust in poet’s word.
“When Stars Are In The Quiet Skies” by Edward Bulwer
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea!
For thoughts, like waves that glide by night,
Are stillest when they shine.
Mine earthly love lies hushed in light
Beneath the heaven of thine.
There is an hour when angels keep
Familiar watch o’er men,
When coarser souls are wrapped in sleep
Sweet spirit, meet me then!
There is an hour when holy dreams
Through slumber fairest glide,
And in that mystic hour it seems
Thou shouldst be at my side.
My thoughts of thee too sacred are,
For daylight’s common beam;
I can but know thee as my star,
My angel, and my dream!
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea!
“Come To Me, Dearest” by Joseph Brenan
Come to me, dearest, I’m lonely without thee,
Daytime and night-time, I’m thinking about thee;
Night-time and daytime, in dreams I behold thee;
Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold thee.
Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten,
Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten;
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly,
Come in thy lovingness, queenly and holy.
Swallows will flit round the desolate ruin,
Telling of spring and its joyous renewing;
And thoughts of thy love, and its manifold treasure,
Are circling my heart with a promise of pleasure.
O Spring of my spirit, O May of my bosom,
Shine out on my soul, till it bourgeon and blossom;
The waste of my life has a rose-root within it,
And thy fondness alone to the sunshine can win it.
Figure that moves like a song through the even;
Features lit up by a reflex of heaven;
Eyes like the skies of poor Erin, our mother,
Where shadow and sunshine are chasing each other;
Smiles coming seldom, but childlike and simple,
Planting in each rosy cheek a sweet dimple;—
O, thanks to the Saviour, that even thy seeming
Is left to the exile to brighten his dreaming.
You have been glad when you knew I was gladdened;
Dear, are you sad now to hear I am saddened?
Our hearts ever answer in tune and in time, love,
As octave to octave, and rhyme unto rhyme, love:
I cannot weep but your tears will be flowing,
You cannot smile but my cheek will be glowing;
I would not die without you at my side, love,
You will not linger when I shall have died, love.
Come to me, dear, ere I die of my sorrow,
Rise on my gloom like the sun of to-morrow;
Strong, swift, and fond as the words which I speak, love,
With a song on your lip and a smile on your cheek, love.
Come, for my heart in your absence is weary,—
Haste, for my spirit is sickened and dreary,—
Come to the arms which alone should caress thee,
Come to the heart that is throbbing to press thee!
“The Spell” by Madison Julius Cawein
And we have met but twice or thrice!-
Three times enough to make me love!-
I praised your hair once; then your glove;
Your eyes; your gown;-you were like ice;
And yet this might suffice, my love,
And yet this might suffice.
St. John hath told me what to do:
To search and find the ferns that grow
The fern seed that the faeries know;
Then sprinkle fern seed in my shoe,
And haunt the steps of you, my dear,
And haunt the steps of you.
You’ll see the poppy pods dip here;
The blow-ball of the thistle slip,
And no wind breathing-but my lip
Next to your anxious cheek and ear,
To tell you I am near, my love,
To tell you I am near.
On wood-ways I shall tread your gown-
You’ll know it is no brier!-then
I’ll whisper words of love again,
And smile to see your quick face frown:
And then I’ll kiss it down, my dear,
And then I’ll kiss it down.
And when at home you read or knit,-
Who’ll know it was my hands that blotted
The page?-or all your needles knotted?
When in your rage you cry a bit:
And loud I laugh at it, my love,
And loud I laugh at it.
The secrets that you say in prayer
Right so I’ll hear: and, when you sing,
The name you speak; and whispering
I’ll bend and kiss your mouth and hair,
And tell you I am there, my dear,
And tell you I am there.
Would it were true what people say! –
Would I could find that elfin seed!
Then should I win your love, indeed,
By being near you night and day –
There is no other way, my love,
There is no other way.
Meantime the truth in this is said:
It is my soul that follows you;
It needs no fern seed in the shoe,-
While in the heart love pulses red,
To win you and to wed, my dear,
To win you and to wed.
Poems About Longing for Home
Immerse yourself in a world of longing for home, where verses become the comforting whispers that bridge the distances of the heart.
Buckle up because these wondrous words will take you on a poetic journey, awakening nostalgia and kindling the flames of belonging.
“Algeria.” by Richard Hunter
Dolly’s home’s far away,
Far away in Algiers,
On the African coast,
She won’t see it for years.
But she whispers at night,
And her eyes fill with tears;
“How I wish–how I wish,
I were back in Algiers!”
“The Tropics in New York” by Claude McKay
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.
My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
“Sonnet: XIX.” by Charles Sangster
How my heart yearns towards my friends at home!
Poor suffering souls, whose lives are like the trees,
Bent, crushed, and broken in the storm of life!
A whirlwind of existence seems to roam
Through some poor hearts continually. These
Have neither rest nor pause; one day is rife
With tempest, and another dashed with gloom;
And the few rays of light that might illume
Their thorny path are drenched with tearful rain.
Yet these pure souls live not their lives in vain;
For they become as spiritual guides
And lights to others; rising with the tides
Of their full being into higher spheres,
Brighter and brighter still through all the coming years.
“Home Yearnings” by John Clare
O for that sweet, untroubled rest
That poets oft have sung!–
The babe upon its mother’s breast,
The bird upon its young,
The heart asleep without a pain–
When shall I know that sleep again?
When shall I be as I have been
Upon my mother’s breast–
Sweet Nature’s garb of verdant green
To woo to perfect rest–
Love in the meadow, field, and glen,
And in my native wilds again?
The sheep within the fallow field,
The herd upon the green,
The larks that in the thistle shield,
And pipe from morn to e’en–
O for the pasture, fields, and fen!
When shall I see such rest again?
I love the weeds along the fen,
More sweet than garden flowers,
For freedom haunts the humble glen
That blest my happiest hours.
Here prison injures health and me:
I love sweet freedom and the free.
The crows upon the swelling hills,
The cows upon the lea,
Sheep feeding by the pasture rills,
Are ever dear to me,
Because sweet freedom is their mate,
While I am lone and desolate.
I loved the winds when I was young,
When life was dear to me;
I loved the song which Nature sung,
Endearing liberty;
I loved the wood, the vale, the stream,
For there my boyhood used to dream.
There even toil itself was play;
‘T was pleasure e’en to weep;
‘T was joy to think of dreams by day,
The beautiful of sleep.
When shall I see the wood and plain,
And dream those happy dreams again?
“Home.” by John Clare
O home, however homely,–thoughts of thee
Can never fail to cheer the absent breast;
How oft wild raptures have been felt by me,
When back returning, weary and distrest:
How oft I’ve stood to see the chimney pour
Thick clouds of smoke in columns lightly blue,
And, close beneath, the house-leek’s yellow flower,
While fast approaching to a nearer view.
These, though they’re trifles, ever gave delight;
E’en now they prompt me with a fond desire,
Painting the evening group before my sight,
Of friends and kindred seated round the fire.
O Time! how rapid did thy moments flow,
That chang’d these scenes of joy to scenes of woe.
“Thoughts of Home.” by Arthur Hugh Clough
I watched them from the window, thy children at their play,
And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away,
And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child’s own buoyant gladness
Came gushing back again to me with a soft and solemn sadness;
And feelings frozen up full long, and thoughts of long ago,
Seemed to be thawing at my heart with a warm and sudden flow.
I looked upon thy children, and I thought of all and each,
Of my brother and my sister, and our rambles on the beach,
Of my mother’s gentle voice, and my mother’s beckoning hand,
And all the tales she used to tell of the far, far English land;
And the happy, happy evening hours, when I sat on my father’s knee,
Oh! many a wave is rolling now betwixt that seat and me!
And many a day has passed away since, I left them o’er the sea,
And I have lived a life since then of boyhood’s thoughtless glee;
Yet of the blessed times gone by not seldom would I dream,
And childhood’s joy, like faint far stars, in memory’s heaven would gleam,
And o’er the sea to those I loved my thoughts would often roam,
But never knew I until now the blessings of a home!
I used to think when I was there that my own true home was here,
But home is not in land or sky, but in those whom each holds dear.
The evening’s cooling breeze is fanning my temples now,
But then my frame was languid, and heated was my brow,
And I longed for England’s cool, and for England’s breezes then,
But now I would give full many a breeze to be back in the heat again.
But when cold strange looks without, and proud high thoughts within,
Are weaving round my heart the woof of selfishness and sin;
When self begins to roll a far, a worse and wider sea
Of careless and unloving thoughts between those friends and me,
I will think upon these moments, and call to mind the day
When I watched them from the window, thy children at their play.
“Homesick” by Fay Inchfawn
I shut my eyes to rest ’em, just a bit ago it seems,
An’ back among the Cotswolds I were wanderin’ in me dreams.
I saw the old grey homestead, with the rickyard set around,
An’ catched the lowin’ of the herd, a pleasant, homelike sound.
Then on I went a-singin’, through the pastures where the sheep
Was lyin’ underneath the elms, a-tryin’ for to sleep.
An’ where the stream was tricklin’ by, half stifled by the grass,
Heaped over thick with buttercups, I saw the corncrake pass.
For ’twas Summer, Summer, SUMMER! An’ the blue forget-me-nots
Wiped out this dusty city and the smoky chimbley pots.
I clean forgot My Lady’s gown, the dazzlin’ sights I’ve seen;
I was back among the Cotswolds, where me heart has always been.
Then through the sixteen-acre on I went, a stiffish climb,
Right to the bridge, where all our sheep comes up at shearin’ time.
There was the wild briar roses hangin’ down so pink an’ sweet,
A-droppin’ o’ their fragrance on the clover at my feet
An’ here me heart stopped beatin’, for down by Gatcombe’s Wood
My lad was workin’ with his team, as only my lad could!
“COME BACK!” was what the tricklin’ brook an’ breezes seemed to say.
“‘TIS LONESOME ON THE COTSWOLDS NOW THAT MARY DREW’S AWAY.”
An’ back again I’m goin’ (for me wages has been paid,
An’ they’re lookin’ through the papers for another kitchen maid).
Back to the old grey homestead, an’ the uplands cool an’ green,
To my lad among the Cotswolds, where me heart has always been!
“A Song Of Home” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I am singing a song to the boys to-day,
A song of the home that is far away.
And I know that an echo the word is waking
In many a heart that is secretly aching,
Yes, almost breaking, thinking of Home, dear Home.
But thought, dear boys, is a carrier dove,
And it flies straight into the hearts you love.
You picture the days of your youthful joys,
The old home circle, the girls and boys
You knew in that wonderful world of pleasure,
When life danced on to a lilting measure;
Each scene you treasure, thinking of Home, dear Home.
And here is a thought that is sweet and true –
The ones you long for are longing for you.
You picture the day when the war is done,
The duty accomplished, the victory won,
And over the billows our ships go leaping,
Into our beautiful harbour sweeping,
And with laughter and weeping, you go back Home, Home, Home.
On the walls of your heart you must hang with care
This beautiful picture, framed in prayer.
Thinking of Home, you are blazing a trail
For that glorious day when our ships shall sail;
Where the Goddess of Liberty lights the water
To guide you back from the fields of slaughter,
Fair Freedom’s daughter, who welcomes us Home, Home, Home.
So hold your vision, and work and pray,
As you dream of the Home that is far away.
“Longings For Home” by Walt Whitman
O magnet-south! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!
O dear to me my birth-things, All moving things, and the trees where I was born, the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or through swamps;
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine;
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul to haunt their banks again;
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the Okeechobee, I cross the hummock land, or through pleasant openings, or dense forests;
I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw tree and the blossoming titi;
Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the Carolinas,
I see where the live-oak is growing, I see where the yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto;
I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland;
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;
The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odor and the gloom, the awful natural stillness, (Here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his conceal’d hut;)
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake;
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon, singing through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Tennessee corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav’d corn, slender, flapping, bright green with tassels, with beautiful ears, each well-sheath’d in its husk;
An Arkansas prairie, a sleeping lake, or still bayou;
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart;
O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!