Classic Poem

There is rain upon the window,
There is wind upon the tree;
The rain is slowly sobbing,
The wind is blowing free:
It bears my weary heart
To my own country.

I hear the whitethroat calling,
Hid in the hazel ring;
Deep in the misty hollows
I hear the sparrows sing;
I see the bloodroot starting,
All silvered with the spring.

I skirt the buried reed-beds,
In the starry solitude:
My snowshoes creak and whisper,
I have my ready blood.
I hear the lynx-cub yelling
In the gaunt and shaggy wood.

I hear the wolf-tongued rapid
Howl in the rocky break;
Beyond the pines at the portage
I hear the trapper wake
His En roulant ma boule ,
From the clear gloom of the lake.

O! take me back to the homestead,
To the great rooms warm and low,
Where the frost creeps on the casement,
When the year comes in with snow.
Give me, give me the old folk
Of the dear long ago.

Oh, land of the dusky balsam,
And the darling maple tree,
Where the cedar buds and berries,
And the pine grows strong and free!
My heart is weary and weary
For my own country.