My Native Home

My native home why did I roam
From thy dear sheltering bowers?
Where birds and bees sang mid the
trees,
Through the long summer hours.

That cottage brown not build in
town,
But in the country glade,
Where laughing brook with many a
crook
Played 'neath the willows' shade.

That old brick mill upon the hill,
The brooklet running by;
Down in that brook with line and
hook,
To catch the fish we'd try.

The watchdog gray slept on the hay,
The cat played with her kitten,
And Grandma Squire sat by the fire,
So busy with her knitting.

Then after tea so merrily
Around the fire we'd come,
0 grandma dear, we want to hear,
A story, please, just one.

All this I know was long ago,
But still I well remember
The walnut shade down in the glade
And beachnuts in November.

Child of today, enjoy your play
Through meadows red with clover.
For brooklets rare will echo there,
A wish to be a rover.

And when you roam far, far from
home,
And have a moment's leisure,
You'll wish like me that home to see,
Where days brought naught but
pleasure.

^__Nettie Squire Sutton.

A Book of Poems
Nettie Squire Sutton
(Minneapolis, KS: Messenger Press. n.d.)
Pages 11-12