Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology

From The Old Homestead

Howard L. Terry 92 From The Old Homestead I. Retrospection When time, as time has done and yet will do, Outgrows the old to make way for the new, The lonely heart, forgetting outward self, And care and pain and riches, lowly pelf, Allows itself to wander far away To that sweet time when life was but a day Of joy and sureness, love and sheer delight, Untouched by wrong, e’er guided in the right By loving hand of mother or of friend, And dreams all this continues to life’s end, There comes some scene, some spot the best of all, And this the memory does with joy recall. Endearing moments, how ye hold and bind! More than an idle musing of the mind, For there is that within it, unexpressed, That to the soul with sacredness is blessed, And scenes by love engraved upon the heart Remain a part of us until from life we part. I hold most dear, with unexpressed love, That scene, that home, where first I early strove, And if these lines are efforts to reveal My love of it, oh, break me every seal That binds my heart, and from its depth let flow Unchanged the current of my being’s glow. With that dark hour when I was an orphan made A change came o’er that with me e’er has stayed: A silent life, the slowly failing ear In rural home I strive to picture here. A humble house of unpretentious wood, Wherein an aunt, long in her widowhood, Howard L. Terry 93 With daughters two engaged the lengthening years, The business of life, the joys, the tears. Such is the modest subject of my lines, The spot for which my absent presence pines. The house beside a mighty poplar stands, Just where the roadway slopes to lower lands. The weather-boarded sides its age extends, And with that age a pleasing quaintness blends. The overhanging roof and windows small Full many a tale from out the past recall; And there the swallow, nesting in the eaves, Seeking their food a little family leaves, High and secure beneath the sheltering board The peeping fledglings wait the mother bird. Their time to leave, like mine, was yet to come. Might they, like me, recall their little home! Within, the rooms are large and ceilings low, Just as they made them many years ago; And there the chimneys, piercing roof and floors. The papered walls, the ever-creaking doors. The narrow stair that to the garret lead, For human comfort great improvement needs, And youth must follow age to reach their height. Such steps were never made for hurried flight. The leaky roof, the rattling shutters green, The cracking plaster and the cheesecloth screen; The dear old garret of my boyhood day! Bitter the winter chill and fierce the summer ray! The goodly aunt who has the mother been Through all my sickness and the trials within, Has striven, and is striving while I write, A child obedient to her God, a light That through the sorrows she has had to bear (And she had more than is just her share) Has burned with one increasing radiance, That will not flicker when the Maker’s glance Howard L. Terry 94 Falls on it, as it will. Of her I speak, But words are wanting and my lines are weak And pay but poorly as a recompense For all that she has done for me and my defense. And I have seen her, tearful, in her pain, When all our efforts to appease were vain; When anguish, trouble, care and mental strife Seemed on the verge of blotting out her life; But then and there her Christian spirit told, When rose she up to take another hold. How many an act of kindliness has she Put forth her efforts to extend to me! And e’en the life that courses in these veins I owe to her, to her and all her pains; For once my pulse was slowly ebbing, when With love and care she nursed me back again. Should I not then outpour a thankful heart, And in these lines my gratitude impart? The daughters fair were kind and loving, too, The one a teacher, in her letters true, The other for the family played the cook, And good she was at that, nor used a book Of...