🖋 🎓 GRADUATION SEASON: “Set me free to find my calling”

The end of May marks the end of the Leo Term, our spring term in the River Houses, and many homeschoolers treat the end of May as an opportunity to hold a family graduation ceremony. The beautiful song “Homeward Bound” by American composer Marta Keen (b. 1953) has in recent years become a staple of high school choirs and many other vocal groups across the country and around the world. The narrator in the song is a young person asking permission to leave home, and promising to return. We think “Homeward Bound” is an ideal spring-time graduation anthem for every home academy. The words are our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the last week of May.

Homeward Bound

In the quiet misty morning, when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing and the sky is clear and red,
When the summer’s ceased its gleaming, when the corn is past its prime,
When adventure’s lost its meaning, I’ll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow,
Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

If you find it’s me you’re missing, if you’re hoping I’ll return,
To your thoughts I’ll soon be list’ning; in the road I’ll stop and turn,
Then the wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end,
And the path I’ll be retracing when I’m homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow,
Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing, I’ll be homeward bound again.

Here’s a wonderful video performance by the Brigham Young University student ensemble Vocal Point, accompanied by the All-American Boys Chorus:

Or perhaps instead of an all-male performance, you’d prefer the all-female Ballard High School Treble Choir from Seattle:

Or, if you’d like a more Classical rendition, try this resonant recording from the great Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, produced by Deutsche Grammophon:

Or maybe best of all — and an inspiration for any young singers you may have in your home academy — here’s a delightful performance by the Texas Children’s Choir in San Antonio:

Happy graduation season to all homeschoolers everywhere!

What other wonderful words and marvelous music did you and your students discover in your homeschool this Leo Term? 😊

❡ I’ll be homeward bound in time: If a special line or turn of phrase happens to strike you in one of our weekly poems, just copy it onto your homeschool bulletin board for a few days and invite your students to speak it aloud — that’s all it takes to begin a new poetical friendship and learn a few lovely words that will stay with you for life. 🎓

❡ Here, said the year: This post is one of our regular homeschool poems-of-the-week. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar to follow along with us as we visit fifty of our favorite friends over the course of the year, and add your name to our River Houses mailing list to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox every week. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

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❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡