Languages & literature > Athenaeum

THE ATHENJ5UM.
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O! FOR A HOME AMID THE HILLS
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O ! for a home amid the hills,
A shelter in some lonely glen
Reside the voice of gushing rills,
And far from that of selfish men !
O ! for the broad and surging sea,
With all its music wild or sad.
O ! for the breeze that revels free,
And makes the prisoned spirit glad !
The wild and .waste, the bleak and bare.
The distant and the still for me,
If crawling things may come not there,
Nor gold bend down one stubborn knee.
My soul shrinks from the hollow heart,
As would my foot from melting snow,
Or where the turf with flowery art
Conceals the stagnant marsh below.
The painted hall—the painted face.
Or glazed with purchased smiles or dies—
The smirk where cunning leaves its trace;
O ! how from these my spirit flies!
’Tis all deceit—the friendly grasp,
The whispered tricklings of the tongue ;
A Judas lurks in Love’s own clasp—
The arm hath stabbed me as it clung !
And must I, ’mid the dinsome crowd,
Smirk, bustle, smile, crouch—struggle too;