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From Volunteers Charles Hastings, Delaware MY home is in Laurel. | |
But they speak my name there no more. | |
Yet the place is still green in my memory, | |
And Im only twenty fiveI may be forgiven. | |
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But tell this to my people there for me, | 5 |
And put it in their paper: | |
That Ive wandered many miles from home | |
Since the dark night when I ran away; | |
And now Ive enlisted for the war. | |
My path is too winding and hidden | 10 |
For them ever to find clues of me, | |
But Id like my people to know that I understand now | |
How a weary life and destroyed ways | |
Take many a man away from home. | |
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I know too the selfishness of the stony cities now; | 15 |
For in them my Buddy and I | |
Once threw dice for the only job to be had. | |
And I took to the road and its taunts, | |
And he took the job. | |
But both of us had known together | 20 |
The cold glitter of the stars over us all night, | |
When the heart-sides of us thumped hard | |
And were sad. | |
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But I want my people to know nothing of that. | |
Tell them only that after seven years wandering | 25 |
My heart is growing peaceful again | |
And my face bright with looking toward my home; | |
And that the army is my refuge, | |
Where Im happy and content. | |
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Tell them too that on my first furlough | 30 |
Ill be returning to them in the old house. | |
Returning! returning! | |
Theres in that word something beautiful | |
To me now! | |
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But my young laughter is returning in silence, | 35 |
And my fierce waywardness is returning in sorrow | |
Tenderly to the mother who thought | |
She would see her son no more. | |
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