quote:

A Sorrowful Choice

Rather than see a stranger in the seat
Of my dear father, and irreverent hands
Profane the things my sainted mother's touch
Made sacred (should my wandering feet
Ever return from these far distant lands
To that lost home I loved and honoured much),
Methinks it were a lesser pain to find
The house in ruins ; all its old-time grace
Utterly vanished — nor a lingering trace
Of what it had been, in the wreck behind.
More like my own sad heart that home would be
Soulless and silent, dead to every tie ;
And the old hearth bereft of all its glee,
Staring through naked rafters at the sky. (link)