A House or a Home?

 

I have used this poem for so many occasions: special wedding cards, posters, and even take-home reminders for my counselling clients. It is worth striving for a home such as this:

  

The walls of a house may be built of wood,

Its foundations of brick or of stone;

But a genuine home is an exquisite thing,

For it’s built of heart-throbs alone.

The price of a house may be reckoned at once,

And paid with a handful of gold;

But the price of a home very few can compute,

And that price they have never yet told.

The rooms of a house may be stately and grand,

Their adornment a triumph of art;

But the beauty of a home is the final result

Of the toil of an unselfish heart.

A house may be burned, may be sold or exchanged,

Nor the loss of one’s peace interfere;

But the loss of a home - how it crushes the heart! -

For our homes we all love and revere.

Of houses a man may possess many scores,

Yet his lack of a home cause despair;

But an honourable couple, in a home filled with love,

Must be counted a true millionaire. 

 

Adapted from J.H. Sykes