Classic Poem

Back home on my mare I took my way,
Through hour upon hour of waning day,
Where thistles on windy ledges shook,
And aspen leaves quiver'd o'er the brook,
By slope and by level ambling on,
Till day with the sunken sun was gone,
And out in the west a sheet of light
Was lingering pale — pale in the night.

At last, as my mare came snorting near
My dwelling, where all things near were dear,
The apples were swung in darksome balls,
And roses hung dark beside the walls,
No cows were about the fields to low,
The fowls were at roost in sleeping row,
And only the rushing owl came by
In moongleamings pale — pale in the sky.

Within my old door my lamp was clear,
To show me the faces many and dear,
My mother's, now dimm'd by life-long care,
My wife's, as a wife's, of ten years' wear,
My children's, well shapen line by line,
One seven, one five, one three years, mine,
And one that has come before our sight,
His one moon pale — pale in the night.