Classic Poem

A SAILOR by the green home shore,
When seas are ebbing from his view,
Doth all his early joys renew:
He sings the songs he sang of yore;

He spies his little cot, he smiles
With a full joy ne'er felt before —
He holds that one bare prospect more
Than all the summer of the isles.

The quiet home is his; the trees
Sprang from the seeds his grandsires laid
Among the mold; within the glade
The myrtles rustle in the breeze.

Above a treasured little grave,
His early lost, his first deep woe!
Not any land that he may know
Beyond the purple of the wave.

Hath such a jewel in its breast.
He loves each rock and stream and dell;
'Tis only here he cares to dwell,
'Tis ever here he longs to rest.

This is his home of joy and ease:
And better is the myrtle tomb
Than all the heavy dusks that gloom
The groves of spice beyond the seas.