Classic Poem

A DREARY lot is his who roams
“Homeless among a thousand homes;”
A dreary thing it is to stray,
As I have sometimes heard men say,
And of myself have partly known,
A passing stranger and alone
In some great city: harder there,
With life about us everywhere,
Than in the desert to restrain
A sense of solitary pain.
We wander through the busy street,
And think how every one we meet
Has parents, sister, friend, or wife,
With whom to share the load of life;
We wander on, for little care
Have we to turn our footsteps there,
Where we are but a nameless guest,
One who may claim no interest
In any heart—a passing face,
That comes and goes, and leaves no trace;
Where service waits us, prompt but cold—
A loveless service, bought and sold.

Yet hard it is not to sustain
A time like this, if there remain
True greetings for us, hand and heart,
Wherein we claim the chiefest part,
Although divided now they be
By many a tract of land and sea.
If we can fly to thoughts like these,
Fall back on such sure sympathies,
This were sufficient to repress
That transient sense of loneliness.

Yet better, if, where'er we roam,
Another country, truer home,
Is in our hearts; if there we find
The word of power, that from the mind
All sad and drear thoughts shall repel,
All solitary broodings quell;
If in the joy of heaven we live,
Nor only on what earth can give,
Though pure and high—so we may learn
Unto the soul's great good to turn
What things soever best engage
Our thoughts toward our pilgrimage,
Which teach us this is not our rest,
That here we are but as a guest;
As doubtless 'twas no other thought
That in his holy bosom wrought,
Who not alone content to win
In life the shelter of an inn,
Was fain to finish the last stage
There of his mortal pilgrimage.

We too, if we are wise, may be
Pleased for a season to be free
From the encumbrances which love—
Affection hallowed from above,
But earthly yet—has power to fling
About the spirit's heavenward wing;
Pleased if we feel that God is nigh,
Both where we live and where we die,
Whether among true kindred thrown,
Or seeming outwardly alone—
That, whether this or that befall,
He watches and has care of all.