Home Poem by Annie Adams Fields

WHY dost thou urge me thus to leave
The gray shore and the busy sea,
Before the autumn learns to grieve
His vanished ecstasy?

Here blessings fall about our feet,
Boughs, flame-lit, bear our thoughts on high;
Odors and memories mingle sweet
Where Love hath wandered by.

And they, who still would search, still far
And farther oftentimes must go;
Only the voyager to one star
The guiding light can know.

Peace is not here, she is not there;
She dwells with them who seek her not.
Dear love, stay we at home, for fear
We miss her haunted spot.