DOVER CLIFFS On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave AN ITALIAN SONG DEAR is my little native vale: The ringdove builds and murmurs there; Close by my cot she tells her tale To every passing villager. The squirrel leaps from tree to tree, In orange groves and myrtle bowers, I charm the fairy-footed hours With my loved lute's romantic sound; The shepherd's horn at break of day, Sung in the silent greenwood shade; Samuel Rogers [1763-1855] THE EXILE'S SONG Он, why left I my hame? Where my forefathers sleep? The palm-tree waveth high, And to the Indian maid The bulbul sweetly sings; But I dinna see the broom Oh, here no Sabbath bell Awakes the Sabbath morn, Nor song of reapers heard There's a hope for every woe, And a path across the sea; Robert Gilfillan [1798-1850] "THE SUN RISES BRIGHT IN FRANCE" THE sun rises bright in France, And fair sets he; But he has tint the blithe blink he had In my ain countrie. O, it's nae my ain ruin That saddens aye my e'e, But the dear Marie I left behin' My lanely hearth burned bonnie, The bird comes back to summer, And the blossom to the bee; But I'll win back, O never, O, I am leal to high Heaven, Allan Cunningham [1784-1842] FATHER LAND AND MOTHER TONGUE OUR Father Land! and wouldst thou know It is that Adam here below Was made of earth by Nature's hand; And he, our father made of earth, And we, in memory of his birth, Do call our country Father Land. At first, in Eden's bowers, they say, No sound of speech had Adam caught, But whistled like a bird all day,— And maybe 'twas for want of thought: Made Adam soon surpass the birds; And so the native land, I hold, By male descent is proudly mine; The language, as the tale hath told, Was given in the female line. And thus we see on either hand We name our blessings whence they've sprung; We call our country Father Land, We call our language Mother Tongue. Samuel Lover [1797-1868] THE FATHERLAND WHERE is the true man's fatherland? Is it alone where freedom is, Where God is God and man is man? Where'er a human heart doth wear After a life more true and fair, There is the true man's birthplace grand, Where'er a single slave doth pine, Where'er one man may help another,- James Russell Lowell [1819-1891] |