Images of Patriarchal Life

Calm scenes of patriarch life! how long a power
Your unworn pastoral images retain
O’er the true heart, which in its childhood’s hour
Drank their pure freshness deep! The camels’ train
Winding in patience o’er the desert plain--
The tent, the palm-tree, the reposing flock,
The gleaming fount, the shadow of the rock--
Oh! by how subtle, yet how strong a chain,
And in the influence of its touch how bless’d,
Are these things link’d, in many a thoughtful breast,
To household-memories, thro’ all change endear’d!
--The matin bird, the ripple of a stream
Beside our native porch, the hearth-light’s gleam,
The voices, earliest by the soul revered!