I’ve lit the Christmas candle, <br />As we used to long ago <br />When it shone through cabin windows <br />On Holly-hedge and snow. <br />In this fine new house they’ve built me <br />That is furnished rich and fair- <br />But I’m hearing now the breakers rolling round the cliffs of Moher, <br />And my heart is aching, aching for a breath of Irish air. <br /> <br />The wren boys on St. Stephen’s Day. <br />Went singin’ up and down <br />With their poor dead wren and thorn bush, <br />I heard them through the town. <br />But to-night down lighted city streets, <br />I hear the distant band, <br />And when’er they play ‘our own’ hymns or tune of dear old Ireland, <br />The poor old foolish heart of me is in another land. <br /> <br />‘Twas a lonely hillside chapel, <br />Where we tramped to midnight Mass, <br />With the flaring lights we carried <br />Throwing shadows on the grass. <br />But to-night my boy will drive me <br />In his grand new limousine, <br />And he’ll wrap my furs around me, proudly caring for his Mother, <br />And I’ll ride to the Cathedral just as grand as any queen. <br /> <br />Ah! No, I’m not repinin’, <br />And I love this wide new land, <br />And I’m proud to see the childer <br />Growin’ prosperous and grand, <br />But roots strike deep in Irish soil, <br />Old memories are sweet, <br />And to-night my heart is yearnin’ for the cabin I was born in, <br />And I smell the reek of turf-smoke driftin’ up the city streets.<br /><br />Alice Guerin Crist<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/homesick-14/
