Home is home, though it be never so homely.

Home is home, though it be never so homely.

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.

There's nobody at home
But Jumping Joan,
And father and mother and I.

There's nobody at home
But Jumping Joan,
And father and mother and I.

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest read more

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to read more

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a
lodge in a garden read more

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a
lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

The worst thing about work in the house or home is that whatever you do is destroyed, laid waste or read more

The worst thing about work in the house or home is that whatever you do is destroyed, laid waste or eaten within twenty four hours.

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.