Classic Poem

Ever a voice is pleading at my heart,
With mournful pleading, ever soft and low,
Yet deep as with an ocean's overflow,
“Depart! depart! Why wilt thou not depart?
Here are no blossoms such as live; no flowers,
Such as with sacred scent and happy glow,
Recall Elysian homes, and those dear hours,
When with the breezes sporting in our bowers,
And the soft moonlight sweet'ning the old towers,
There was no tree that sheltered not its bird,
No shrub without its song and summer bloom,
And never a fate was nigh, with threatening word,
Articulate of the terror and the doom.
Were not the wings contented there in home
That never lacked its sunshine and its songs?
We did not lack, beneath the grand old dome,
The joy of solitude, though bless'd with throngs,
Coming and going; blessing as they came,
And having solace in the bliss they found:
Depart! depart! and ye shall find the same,
Nor wither in this cold and foreign ground!”
Alas! alas! for the poor home and heart
That still from out their ashes cry “depart!”