The Songs of Home.

Oh, sing once more those dear, familiar lays,         Whose gliding measure every bosom thrills,     And takes my heart back to the happy days         When first I sang them on my native hills!     With the fresh feelings of the olden times,         I hear them now upon a foreign shore--     The simple music and the artless rhymes!         Oh, sing those dear, familiar lays once more,             Those cheerful lays of other days--         Oh, sing those cheerful lays once more!     Oh, sing once more those joy-provoking strains,         Which, half forgotten, in my memory dwell;     They send the life-blood bounding thro' my veins,         And linger round me like a fairy spell.     The songs of home are to the human heart         Far dearer than the notes that song-birds pour,     And of our very nature form a part:         Then sing those dear, familiar lays once more!     Those cheerful lays of other days--         Oh, sing those cheerful lays once more!