Poem: “Homesick” by Edgar A. Guest

A Heap o’ Livin’

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American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’
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Homesick

It’s tough when you are homesick in a strange
      and distant place;
  It’s anguish when you’re hungry for an
      old-familiar face.
  And yearning for the good folks and the joys
      you used to know,
  When you’re miles away from friendship, is a
      bitter sort of woe.
  But it’s tougher, let me tell you, and a stiffer
      discipline
  To see them through the window, and to know
      you can’t go in.

  Oh, I never knew the meaning of that red sign
      on the door,
  Never really understood it, never thought of it
      before;
  But I’ll never see another since they’ve tacked
      one up on mine
  But I’ll think about the father that is barred
      from all that’s fine.
  And I’ll think about the mother who is prisoner
      in there
  So her little son or daughter shall not miss a
      mother’s care.
  And I’ll share a fellow feeling with the saddest
      of my kin,
  The dad beside the gateway of the home he
      can’t go in.

  Oh, we laugh and joke together and the mother
      tries to be
  Brave and sunny in her prison, and she thinks
      she’s fooling me;
  And I do my bravest smiling and I feign a
      merry air
  In the hope she won’t discover that I’m
      burdened down with care.
  But it’s only empty laughter, and there’s nothing
      in the grin
  When you’re talking through the window of the
      home you can’t go in.

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The Perfect Dinner Table > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’

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A Heap o’ Livin’

Homesick

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