A stretch of hill and valley, swathed thick in robes of white,
The buildings blots of blackness, the windows gems of light,
A moon, now clear, now hidden, as in its headlong race
The north wind drags the cloud-wrack in tatters o'er its face;
Mailed twigs that click and clatter upon the tossing tree,
And, like a giant's chanting, the deep voice of the sea,
As‘ mid the stranded ice-cakes the bursting breakers foam,—
The old familiar picture — a winter night at home.
The old familiar picture — the firelight rich and red,
The lamplight soft and mellow, the shadowed beams o'erhead;
And father with his paper, and mother, calm and sweet,
Mending the red yarn stockings stubbed through by careless feet.
The little attic bedroom, the window‘ neath the eaves,
Decked by the Frost King's brushes with silvered sprays and leaves;
The rattling sash which gossips with idle gusts that roam
About the ice-fringed gables — the winter nights at home.
What would I give to climb them — those narrow stairs so steep,—
And reach that little chamber, and sleep a boy's sweet sleep!
What would I give to view it — that old house by the sea —
Filled with the dear lost faces which made it home for me!
The sobbing wind sings softly the song of long ago,
And in that country churchyard the graves are draped in snow;
But there, beyond the arches of Heaven's star-jeweled dome,
Perhaps they know I'm dreaming of winter nights at home.