Home Song

Duncan Campbell Scott (1862–1947)

THERE is rain upon the window,

There is wind upon the tree;

The rain is slowly sobbing,

The wind is blowing free:

It bears my weary heart

To my own country.

I hear the whitethroat calling,

Hid in the hazel ring;

Deep in the misty hollows

I hear the sparrows sing;

I see the bloodroot starting,

All silvered with the spring.

I skirt the buried reed-beds,

In the starry solitude:

My snowshoes creak and whisper,

I have my ready blood.

I hear the lynx-club yelling

In the gaunt and shaggy wood.

I hear the wolf-tongued rapid

Howl in the rocky break;

Beyond the vines at the portage

I hear the trapper wake

His En roulant ma boulé

From the clear gloom of the lake.

O! take me back to the homestead,

To the great rooms warm and low,

Where the frost creeps on the casement,

When the year comes in with snow.

Give me, give me the old folk

Of the dear long ago.

Oh, land of the dusky balsam,

And the darling maple tree,

Where the cedar buds and berries,

And the pine grows strong and free!

My heart is weary and weary

For my own country.