The Homeless

I’ve tolled in the rice-swamp and tolled in the cane,
Till the sweat of my brown fed the earth like rain,
And my tears, like the dew from the great sky’s dome,
Fell heavy, as nightly I sought for my home:
     Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
Last curse of oppression, the slave has no Home!

I took me a wife for my heavy heart’s sake—
They sold her and left my heart ready to break;
Where the surges of Ocean o’er reef-rocks comb,
She leapt from the slaver’s deck, mad for her home;
     Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
Through the portals of Death must the slave find home.

I fled with the babe of my love on my arm.
But wo! For I could not protect her from harm;
Come on the hot blood-hounds, and red was the foam
With the blood on their jaws, when they turned to their home;
     Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
Fell Murder is sheltered, but I have no home.

With weights on my heel I must toil without moan,
Though the blood-rusted iron gnaws deep to the bone,
Not a prayer, not a sigh from my heart might come,
For the rest of the grave, my desire’s last home;
     Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
In the deep silent grave I long for a home.

In the land of my birth, in the heart of my love,
In the hope that can look to a Helper above,
Wherever my feet or my sad thoughts roam,
An alien, forsaken, I find not a home;
     Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
Alone in the lone grave I now seek a home.

O bride of my love, is our babe with thee there,
In the Land of the Dark, where the Silent Ones are?
Shall I meet ye, and know ye are mine when I come?
Then welcome black death, to thy morning-less home;
     Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
Anywhere with my wife and my babe is Home.