[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

When I Go Home

John Charles McNeill

When I go home, green, green will glow the grass,
Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pass;
 Long lines of wood-ducks through the deepening gloam
Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass,
 And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam,
        When I go home.

When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash
The solemn woods above the bearded ash,
 The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath clomb,
Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash,
 And every orchard flaunt its polychrome,
        When I go home.

When I go home and stroll about the farm,
The thicket and the barnyard will be warm.
 Jess will be there, and Nigger Bill, and Tom—
On whom time’s chisel works no hint of harm—
 And, oh, ’twill be a day to rest and roam,
        When I go home!
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Songs, Merry and Sad | Stone & Barringer Co., 1906
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.