Abraham Lincoln: My Childhood Home I See Again
The DayPoems Poetry Collection
Timothy Bovee, editor
www.daypoems.net



  Click on the bonsai for the next poem.



DayPoems Forum

Click to submit poems to DayPoems, comment on DayPoems or a poem within, comment on other poetry sites, update links, or simply get in touch. DayPoems Forum.

DayPoems Front

Poetry Whirl
  Google Abraham Lincoln
  Latest Poetry News

Indexes
  Poems
  Poets
  Editor's poems
  Poetry Places

Poetry Places
  Barrow Street
  Bogart, Paul L. - Welcome to My World
  Lee Lady's Ramblings
  Threnody
  Between These Shores
  Form Reports

Nodes powered by
Open Directory Project<br>at dmoz.org
Open Directory Project at dmoz.org


DayPoems Favorites

  PORT: An Online Visual Arts Journal
  A Poet on a Magical Journey Home
  Chronicles of a Sea Woman
  Parallels Studio
  Bipolar Poetry
  Mantra.X
  Poetry, Film and Books
  Poetry Archive

  Project Gutenberg, a huge collection of books as text, produced as a volunteer enterprise starting in 1990. This is the source of the first poetry placed on DayPoems.
  Tina Blue's Beginner's Guide to Prosody, exactly what the title says, and well worth reading.
  popomo.net, miniature, minimalist-inspired sculptures created from industrial cereamics, an art project at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
  pink.popomo.net, More projects from Portland
  oarena.net, Furby, Eliza, Mr_Friss and Miss_Friss.
  Save Point 0.8.1, a Portland, Oregon, exhibit, Aug. 13-Sept. 5, 2004, at Disjecta.




D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s

Click here!
Won't you help support DayPoems?

My Childhood Home I See Again

2/12/1809-4/15/1865


I

My childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-tones that, passing by,
In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,
We, lingering, list its roar--
So memory will hallow all
We've known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain
Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell
How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs.

II

But here's an object more of dread
Than ought the grave contains--
A human form with reason fled,
While wretched life remains.

Poor Matthew! Once of genius bright,
A fortune-favored child--
Now locked for aye, in mental night,
A haggard mad-man wild.

Poor Matthew! I have ne'er forgot,
When first, with maddened will,
Yourself you maimed, your father fought,
And mother strove to kill;

When terror spread, and neighbors ran,
Your dange'rous strength to bind;
And soon, a howling crazy man
Your limbs were fast confined.

How then you strove and shrieked aloud,
Your bones and sinews bared;
And fiendish on the gazing crowd,
With burning eye-balls glared--

And begged, and swore, and wept and prayed
With maniac laught[ter?] joined--
How fearful were those signs displayed
By pangs that killed thy mind!

And when at length, tho' drear and long,
Time smoothed thy fiercer woes,
How plaintively thy mournful song
Upon the still night rose.

I've heard it oft, as if I dreamed,
Far distant, sweet, and lone--
The funeral dirge, it ever seemed
Of reason dead and gone.

To drink it's strains, I've stole away,
All stealthily and still,
Ere yet the rising God of day
Had streaked the Eastern hill.

Air held his breath; trees, with the spell,
Seemed sorrowing angels round,
Whose swelling tears in dew-drops fell
Upon the listening ground.

But this is past; and nought remains,
That raised thee o'er the brute.
Thy piercing shrieks, and soothing strains,
Are like, forever mute.

Now fare thee well--more thou the cause,
Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs, by time's kind laws,
Hast lost the power to know.

O death! Thou awe-inspiring prince,
That keepst the world in fear;
Why dost thos tear more blest ones hence,
And leave him ling'ring here?


Back to top

DayPoems Poem No. 1518



Comment on DayPoems?

If you are like us, you have strong feelings about poetry, and about each poem you read. Let it all out! Comment on this poem, any poem, DayPoems, other poetry places or the art of poetry at DayPoems Feedback.



Won't you help support DayPoems?


Click here to learn more about how you can keep DayPoems on the Web . . .


Copyright

The DayPoems web site, www.daypoems.net, is copyright 2001-2006 by Timothy Keith Bovee. All rights reserved.

The authors of poetry and other material appearing on DayPoems retain full rights to their work. Any requests for publication in other venues must be negotiated separately with the authors. The editor of DayPoems will gladly attempt to assist in putting interested parties in contact with the authors.

Google DayPoems


Support DayPoems.

Buy your books here

Latest Chapbooks from Powells!!!

 
Search:
Keywords:
In Association with Amazon.com







Bonsai courtesy of
The Online Bonsai Icon Collection
http://www.hav.com/tobic.html