Classic Poem

A gap is in our fireside-ring
The wideness of a tiny tomb;
A prattle sweet as birds can sing
Has left its hush in every room.

Our hearts long for the pretty charms
Of babish questions manifold,
And for the little hugging arms
Now locked across a bosom cold.

The bright hair and the eyes that beamed
So wondrously, O, how we miss!
And, O, the loving lips! that seemed
Fashioned so purposely to kiss.

As they who, yearning over sea,
Grow homesick for their land and kin,
So we grow heaven-sick to be
In that far land our love is in.