Home is home, though it be never so homely.

Home is home, though it be never so homely.

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that read more

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

When the hornet hangs in the holly hock,
And the brown bee drones i' the rose,
And read more

When the hornet hangs in the holly hock,
And the brown bee drones i' the rose,
And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
And summer is near its close--
It's--Oh, for the gate, and the locust lane;
And dusk, and dew, and home again!

A house is a machine for living in.

A house is a machine for living in.

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home

I am far frae my hame, an' i'm weary aften whiles,
For the longed-for hame-bringing an' my Father's welcome read more

I am far frae my hame, an' i'm weary aften whiles,
For the longed-for hame-bringing an' my Father's welcome smiles.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby read more

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes read more

Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes on you. A certain set of buildings, a glimpsed, smudged window-view across a schoolyard, a musty aroma sniffed behind a garage when you were a child, all of which come crowding in upon your latter-day senses -- those are pungent things and vivid, even consoling. But to me they are also inert and nostalgic and unlikely to connect you to the real, to that essence art can sometimes achieve, which is permanence.