DESERTED HOMES. 



With footsteps screaming o'er the snow, 



I walk in the piercing air, 

 Wnere winds are sighing soft and low 



Through the branches brown and bare. 



The homes are all deserted now 



Of the friends I held so dear, 

 The nest clings to the naked bough, 



The birds are no longer here. 

 Slow sways the bough of green bereft. 



Where the thrush at evening sung, 

 And but a few frail twigs are left 



Where the wild dove reared her young. 

 There in the tree-top bleak and high 



Sways the grackles empty nest 

 Where her young, e'er they learned to fly 



Nestled 'neath her sable breast. 

 The kingbird's home for days has lain, 



A sad ruin in the snow, 

 And nests for which I searched in vain, 



Now in bushes plainly show. 

 The yellow warbler's small abode 



Hangs dismantled in the cold. 

 Where silver notes in beauty flowed 



From an instrument of gold. 



As in a volume worn and old, 



One finds blossoms old and dry, 

 But on whose leaves are stories told 



Of happier days gone by. 

 So in each empty nest I find, 



A memory of some sweet lay 

 That wakes an echo in my mind, 



Though the singer is far away. 



Hattie Washburn. 



