Classic Poem

There's a bunch of wild camomile over the door,
The rafters are hung with sweet tansy and rue,
And down in the garden, with grass tangled o'er,
There rattles the stalk where the marigolds grew.

The hands that have delved and the hands that have wrought
At the break of the day and the dawn of the spring,
Ere Autumn, have drifted and wandered apart
From the wealth or the waste that the harvest might bring.

The embers are dead on the rude rocky hearth,
The foot of the stranger makes weird echoes ring,—
All life has departed the home that it blessed,—
Not even a cricket has lingered to sing.

Yes, out of the old State, its woes and its cares,
And into the new where progression may call,—
And leaving the useless and worthless behind,
They left the old cradle that rocked for them all.

Too rude for the unknown life yet to be,
With its deep worn rockers and smooth worn side,
It tells, in its pitiful humbleness crowned,
Of the baby that lived and the baby that died.

Rock-abye—Rock-abye—echoes the song,
Down through the altheas, breathing along—
Only the angels and cradle may keep
The pathos that wakens, the sorrows that sleep.

Too simple the life for the surge of the day,
Too humble the path where the plough-share must lead,
And the wheel shall be hushed and the loom shall be stilled—
The riddle of life is a hard one to read.

Rock-abye—Rock-abye—out of the past,
Into the new day, the best and the last,
Yielding the ties that each true heart must bind,
Leaving the old worn cradle behind.

But peace be upon thee, thou thing of the years,
With garlands of camomile, tansy, and rue,
All nations have honored thee,—poor as thou art,
Thy memory shall be as sweet herbs in the dew.

Rock-abye—Rock-abye—wherever found,
In the rough places make blossoms abound—
Progression moves on, but its spindles must lock,
Wherever love finds a wee cradle to rock.