The Rhode Island Republican

POETRY.

From the Boston Statesman.

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born.

My birth place! oh my birth place,
The house beneath the hill;
The moss upon the sloping roof,
The trickle of the rill.
And the artificial water fall,
That turned my little mill.

My birth place! with its spreading trees,
Its parlor windows low,
The door which opened to the south,
Through which I used to go;
And the creeper climbing to the top,
And hanging over so.

I dreamed of it—my birth place—
And went again to see
The moss upon its sloping roof,
The shadow of its tree;
Alas! that only in my dream
That pleasant sight should be?

Decay had left it desolate,
Its pleasant trees were gone;
The mossy roof had fallen in,
The rose was overthrown;
And the creeper tangled with the hedge,
Across the stepping stone.

The bank on which I knelt to drink,
The ferns I used to fling
My pitcher and my cap upon,
Were dry and withering;
And the trunk was broken that led away
The water from the spring.

I could not pass the broken door,
And sadly turned away;
Where limped my little water-fall,
But that was swept away;
In which I used to play—

My birth-place! oh, my birth-place,
I never more may see
The happy hours my childhood saw,
Beneath your spreading tree!

Would I were as innocent
As then I used to be.