Three men walk through a snowy, wild landscape, cheered by the fair morning but unsettled by the cold roofs they’re approaching—a place they cannot feel happy in, though they’ve shared food and rest. They are companions out of necessity, not friendship, and this becomes plain when someone’s offhand saying, ‘how quick the beaten horse runs home,’ makes them all smile a sly, unspoken smile at the word ‘home.’ Each knows it divides them across three distant counties; they aren’t at home together. As the sun sets, the speaker plays with the word ‘homesick’ in his thoughts, but recoils. He realizes that if he let himself feel the ache behind that word, he couldn’t bear his life—this captivity must end, or he’ll become a different man, or existence itself an evil dream. The mood is subdued and lonely, as a familiar word suddenly opens onto emptiness.
"Home" — Summary
FAIR was the morning, fair our tempers, and We had seen nothing fairer than that land, Though strange, and the untrodden snow that made Wild of the tame, casting out all that was Not wild and rustic and old; and we were glad.
Fair, too, was afternoon, and first to pass Were we that league of snow, next the north wind
There was nothing to return for, except need, And yet we sang nor ever stopped for speed, As we did often with the start behind. Faster still strode we when we came in sight Of the cold roofs where we must spend the night. Happy we had not been there, nor could be. Though we had tasted sleep and food and fellowship Together long.
"How quick" to someone's lip
The words came, "will the beaten horse run home."
The word "home" raised a smile in us all three, And one repeated it, smiling just so That all knew what he meant and none would say. Between three counties far apart that lay We were divided and looked strangely each At the other, and we knew we were not friends But fellows in a union that ends With the necessity for it, as it ought.
Never a word was spoken, not a thought Was thought, of what the look meant with the word "Home" as we walked and watched the sunset blurred. And then to me the word, only the word, "Homesick," as it were playfully occurred: No more.
If I should ever more admit
Than the mere word I could not endure it For a day longer: this captivity Must somehow come to an end, else I should be Another man, as often now I seem, Or this life be only an evil dream.