p. 9 | WHEN I GO HOME by Eugene Field

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 10, 1898

WHEN I GO HOME.

By Eugene Field

It comes to me often in silence, When the firelight sputters low, When the black, uncertain shadows See wraiths of the long ago; Always with a throb of heartache That thrills each pulsing vein, Comes the old, unquiet longing For the peace of home again.

I’m sick of the roar of cities, And of faces cold and strange; I know there’s warmth of welcome, And my yearning fancies range Back to the dear old homestead, With an aching sense of pain; But there’ll be joy in the coming When I go home again.

When I go home again! There’s music That may never die away, And it seems that the band of angels On mystic harps at play, Have touched with a yearning sadness On a beautiful, broken strain, To which is my fond heart wording— When I go home again.

Outside of my darkening window Is the great world’s crash and din, And slowly the autumn’s shadows Come drifting, drifting in. Sobbing, the night wind murmurs To the plash of the autumn’s rain; But I dream of the glorious greeting When I go home again.

—Eugene Field.