A Little While, a Little While

'A little while, a little while,The weary task is put away,And I can sing and I can smile,Alike, while I have holiday.

Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart—What thought, what scene invites thee now?What spot, or near or far apart,Has rest for thee, my weary brow?

There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,Where winter howls, and driving rain;But, if the dreary tempest chills,There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,Moonless above bends twilight's dome;But what on earth is half so dear—So longed for—as the hearth of home?The mute bird sitting on the stone,The dank moss dripping from the wall,The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,I love them—how I love them all!

Still, as I mused, the naked room,The alien firelight died away;And from the midst of cheerless gloom,I passed to bright, unclouded day.

A little and a lone green laneThat opened on a common wide;A distant, dreamy, dim blue chainOf mountains circling every side.

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;And, deepening still the dream-like charm,Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.

That was the scene, I knew it well;I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,That, winding o'er each billowy swell,Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.

Could I have lingered but an hour,It well had paid a week of toil;But Truth has banished Fancy's power;Restraint and heavy task recoil.Even as I stood with raptured eye,Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,My hour of rest had fleeted by,And back came labour, bondage, care.