My Lonely Homestead Poem by James Ephraim McGirt

My dear old home's not like it used to be,
Since my dear old mother died;
Sunshine from it has passed away,
The old cot seems so lonely,
I can no more reside,
The dear old form is resting 'neath the clay.

The voice is hushed that I used to hear,
There is no one a sitting in the old arm chair,
My heart is filled with sadness; it is wrapped in gloom,
I cannot bear to enter in her dear old room;
Her Bible lying open on a table near,
And by it lies the glasses that she used to wear;
She just had finished reading, when she fell asleep,
Where Jesus said to Simon, 'love me, feed my sheep.'

So well do I remember late at eve,
When from labor I'd return;
I'd hear the dear one singing as I neared,
And when her room I'd enter,
The lamp of love would burn,
A paradise to me my home appeared.

There's a half finished stocking she'd began for me
And all her knitting needles where they used to be;
The spinning wheel is standing where it stood for years,
A spinning out the cotton, humming out her cares.
Upon the wall's her picture, solemn, sweet, not stern,
It seems to gaze upon me every way I turn;
The kind and loving Savior knoweth best,
Hath freed her from labor, called her home to rest.