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.

How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
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How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

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

My home is in Heaven. I\'m just traveling through this world.

My home is in Heaven. I\'m just traveling through this world.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
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The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land.

For a man's house is his castle.

For a man's house is his castle.

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.

My whinstone house my castle is,
I have my own four walls.

My whinstone house my castle is,
I have my own four walls.

At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by read more

At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board.