A sound of music gently swells
Along the breeze—it comes and goes
Faintly, and now to clamor grows.
The bells are ringing—Sabbath bells.

From belfries dedicate to saints,
And steeples called by holy names
Of men who died for Christ in flames,
The music bursts, and flies and faints
Far up in air, along the blue
Still shore of heaven, and into spray
Of silvery silence dies away. . . . . .

Now, slowly, softly breaking through
The mist that veils departed years
With half-shut eyes I dimly see
A picture dear as life to me—
The place where I was born appears—
A little town with grassy ways
And shady streets, where life hums low,
(A place where world-worn men might go
To calmly close their fading days.)

One simple spire points to the skies
Above the leafy trees. I hear
The old Moravian bell ring clear,
But see no more—tears fill my eyes.

No more have I in that dear place
A home; and saddest memories cling—
Ah, sad as death—to everything
About it. But by God's good grace,
Where'er it be my fate to die,
Beneath those trees in whose dark shade
The first loved of my life are laid
I want to lie.