When I Go Home
By John Charles McNeill
When I go home, green, green will glow the grass,
Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pass;
Long lines of wood-ducks through the deepening gloam
Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass,
And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam,
When I go home.
When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash
The solemn woods above the bearded ash,
The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath clomb,
Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash,
And every orchard flaunt its polychrome,
When I go home.
When I go home and stroll about the farm,
The thicket and the barnyard will be warm.
Jess will be there, and Nigger Bill, and Tom--
On whom time's chisel works no hint of harm--
And, oh, 'twill be a day to rest and roam,
When I go home!