Home Songs

        The little loves and sorrows are my song:
            The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
            Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
        O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
        The little cares and carols that belong
            To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
            And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
        Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

        If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
            And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
        Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
            Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
        More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
        Time, looking back at last, should count my life.

John Charles McNeill

John Charles McNeill was a prominent American poet known for his works that vividly depicted the landscapes and spirit of North Carolina. Born on July 26, 1874, in Wagram, North Carolina, he won acclaim with his book 'Songs Merry and Sad,' which won the Patterson Cup in 1905. His poetry primarily reflects rural life and Southern traditions. Sadly, McNeill's promising career was cut short when he died on October 17, 1907, at the young age of 33.

John Charles McNeill

To ------

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

Trifles

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

Sonnet

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Folk Song

        When merry milkmaids to their cattle call
            At evenfall
            And voices range
        Loud through the gloam from grange to quiet grange,

        Wild waif-songs from long distant lands and loves,
            Like migrant doves,
            Wake and give wing
        To passion dust-dumb lips were wont to sing.

        The new still holds the old moon in her arms;
            The ancient charms
            Of dew and dusk
        Still lure her nomad odors from the musk,

        And, at each day's millennial eclipse,
            On new men's lips,
            Some old song starts,
        Made of the music of millennial hearts,

        Whereto one listens as from long ago
            And learns to know

John Charles McNeill

Slumber Songs

        I

        Sleep, little eyes
        That brim with childish tears amid thy play,
        Be comforted!    No grief of night can weigh
        Against the joys that throng thy coming day.

        Sleep, little heart!
        There is no place in Slumberland for tears:
        Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears
        And sorrows that will dim the after years.
        Sleep, little heart!


        II

        Ah, little eyes
        Dead blossoms of a springtime long ago,
        That life's storm crushed and left to lie below
        The benediction of the falling snow!

        Sleep, little heart
        That ceased so long ago its frantic beat!
        The years that come and go with silent feet

John McCrae

Slumber Songs

I

Sleep, little eyes
That brim with childish tears amid thy play,
Be comforted!No grief of night can weigh
Against the joys that throng thy coming day.

Sleep, little heart!
There is no place in Slumberland for tears:
Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears
And sorrows that will dim the after years.
Sleep, little heart!


II

Ah, little eyes
Dead blossoms of a springtime long ago,
That life's storm crushed and left to lie below
The benediction of the falling snow!

Sleep, little heart
That ceased so long ago its frantic beat!
The years that come and go with silent feet
Have naught to tell save this, that rest is sweet.
Dear little heart.

John McCrae

Away Down Home

        'T will not be long before they hear
            The bullbat on the hill,
        And in the valley through the dusk
            The pastoral whippoorwill.
        A few more friendly suns will call
            The bluets through the loam
        And star the lanes with buttercups
                Away down home.

        "Knee-deep!" from reedy places
            Will sing the river frogs.
        The terrapins will sun themselves
            On all the jutting logs.
        The angler's cautious oar will leave
            A trail of drifting foam
        Along the shady currents
                Away down home.

        The mocking-bird will feel again
            The glory of his wings,
        And wanton through the balmy air

John Charles McNeill

A Song of Comfort

        "Sleep, weary ones, while ye may --
            Sleep, oh, sleep!"
                    Eugene Field.


        Thro' May time blossoms, with whisper low,
        The soft wind sang to the dead below:
        "Think not with regret on the Springtime's song
        And the task ye left while your hands were strong.
        The song would have ceased when the Spring was past,
        And the task that was joyous be weary at last."

        To the winter sky when the nights were long
        The tree-tops tossed with a ceaseless song:
        "Do ye think with regret on the sunny days
        And the path ye left, with its untrod ways?
        The sun might sink in a storm cloud's frown
        And the path grow rough when the night came down."...

John McCrae

The Songs of Home.

Oh, sing once more those dear, familiar lays,
    Whose gliding measure every bosom thrills,
And takes my heart back to the happy days
    When first I sang them on my native hills!
With the fresh feelings of the olden times,
    I hear them now upon a foreign shore--
The simple music and the artless rhymes!
    Oh, sing those dear, familiar lays once more,
        Those cheerful lays of other days--
    Oh, sing those cheerful lays once more!

Oh, sing once more those joy-provoking strains,
    Which, half forgotten, in my memory dwell;
They send the life-blood bounding thro' my veins,
    And linger round me like a fairy spell.
The songs of home are to the human heart
    Far dearer than the notes that song-birds pour,
And of our very nature form a part...

George Pope Morris