Welcome Home.

My Mary's voice!--It is the hour
She promised to be here:
Taught by love's mysterious power,
I know that she is near.
I hear the melody she sings
Beneath our happy dome,
And now the woodland cheerly rings
With Mary's welcome home.

My Mary's voice!--I hear it thrill
In rapture on the gale,
As she comes gliding down the hill
To meet me in the vale.
In all the world, on land or sea,
Where'er I chance to roam,
No music is so sweet to me
As Mary's welcome home.

George Pope Morris

George Pope Morris was an American editor, poet, and songwriter. Born on October 10, 1802, he made significant contributions to American literature and music. Morris co-founded and edited the New York Evening Mirror, where he published works by Edgar Allan Poe and others. He is perhaps best known for his song "Woodman, Spare That Tree!" and his role in the early 19th-century literary scene. Morris died on July 6, 1864, leaving behind a legacy of editorial and creative work that influenced many American writers and musicians.

George Pope Morris

Funeral Hymn.

George Pope Morris, Simple Poetry

The Suitors.

George Pope Morris, Simple Poetry

The Welcome and Farewell.

George Pope Morris, Simple Poetry

Words

George Pope Morris, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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I'm With You Once Again.

I'm with you once again, my friends,
No more my footsteps roam;
Where it began my journey ends,
Amid the scenes of home.
No other clime has skies so blue,
Or streams so broad and clear,
And where are hearts so warm and true
As those that meet me here?

Since last with spirits, wild and free,
I pressed my native strand,
I've wandered many miles at sea,
And many miles on land.
I've seen fair realms of the earth
By rude commotion torn,
Which taught me how to prize the worth
Of that where I was born.

In other countries, when I heard
The language of my own,
How fondly each familiar word
Awoke an answering tone!
But when our woodland songs were sung
Upon a foreign mart,
The vows that faltered on the tongue
With rapture t...

George Pope Morris

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

Mary.

One balmy summer night, Mary,
    Just as the risen moon
Had thrown aside her fleecy veil,
    We left the gay saloon;
And in a green, sequestered spot,
    Beneath a drooping tree,
Fond words were breathed, by you forgot,
    That still are dear to me, Mary,
        That still are dear to me.

Oh, we were happy, then, Mary--
    Time lingered on his way,
To crowd a lifetime in a night,
    Whole ages in a day!
If star and sun would set and rise
    Thus in our after years,
The world would be a paradise,
    And not a vale of tears, Mary,
        And not a vale of tears.

I live but in the past, Mary--
    The glorious day of old!
When love was hoarded in the heart,
    As misers hoard their gold:
And often like a bridal...

George Pope Morris

Oh, Would that She were Here!

Oh, would that she were here,
These hills and dales among,
Where vocal groves are gayly mocked
By Echo's airy tongue:
Where jocund nature smiles
In all her boon attire,
And roams the deeply-tangled wilds
Of hawthorn and sweet-brier.
Oh, would that she were here--
The gentle maid I sing,
Whose voice is cheerful as the songs
Of forest-birds in spring!

Oh, would that she were here,
Where the free waters leap,
Shouting in sportive joyousness
Adown the rocky steep:
Where zephyrs crisp and cool
The fountains as they play,
With health upon their wings of light,
And gladness on their way.
Oh, would that she were here,
With these balm-breathing trees,
The sylvan daughters of the sun,
The rain-cloud, and the breeze!

Oh...

George Pope Morris

To My Absent Daughter.

Georgie, come home!--Life's tendrils cling about thee,
    Where'er thou art, by wayward fancy led.
We miss thee, love!--Home is not home without thee--
    The light and glory of the house have fled:
The autumn shiver of the linden-tree
Is like the pang that thrills my frame for thee!

Georgie, come home!--To parents, brother, sister
    Thy place is vacant in this lonely hall,
Where shines the river through the "Jeannie Vista,"
    While twilight shadows lengthen on the wall:
Our spirits falter at the close of day,
And weary night moves tardily away.

Georgie, come home!--The winds and waves are singing
    The mournful music of their parting song,
To soul and sense the sad forboding bringing,
    Some ill detains thee in the town so long:
Oh, that...

George Pope Morris

Up the Hudson.

Song and Chorus.




Up the Hudson!--Fleetly gliding
    To our haunts among the trees!
Joy the gallant vessel guiding
    With a fresh and cheerful breeze!
Wives and dear ones yearn to meet us--
    (Hearts that love us to the core!)
And with fond expressions greet us
    As we near the welcome shore!


Chorus.


Ho! ye inland seas and islands!--
    (Echo follows where we go!)
Ho! ye headlands, hills, and highlands!
    Ho! ye Undercliffeans, ho!


Up the Hudson!--Rock and river,
    Grove and glen pronounce His praise,
Who, of every "Good the Giver,"
    Leads us through these pleasant ways!--
Care recedes like water-traces
    Of our bark, as on we glide,
Where the hand of nature graces<...

George Pope Morris