DOVER CLIFFS

On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uplift their shadowing heads, and at their feet
Hear not the surge that has for ages beat,
How many a lonely wanderer has stood;
And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear
And o'er the distant billows the still eve

Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave
To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear;
Of social scenes from which he wept to part.
Oh! if, like me, he knew how fruitless all
The thoughts that would full fain the past recall,
Soon would he quell the risings of his heart,
And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide,-
The World his country, and his God his guide.
William Lisle Bowles [1762-1850]

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,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange groves and myrtle bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,

I charm the fairy-footed hours

With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent greenwood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale!

Samuel Rogers [1763-1855]

THE EXILE'S SONG

Он, why left I my hame?
Why did I cross the deep?
Oh, why left I the land

Where my forefathers sleep?
I sigh for Scotia's shore,
And I gaze across the sea,
But I canna get a blink
O' my ain countrie!

The palm-tree waveth high,
And fair the myrtle springs;

And to the Indian maid

The bulbul sweetly sings;

But I dinna see the broom
Wi' its tassels on the lea,
Nor hear the lintie's sang
O' my ain countrie!

Oh, here no Sabbath bell

Awakes the Sabbath morn,

Nor song of reapers heard
Amang the yellow corn:
For the tyrant's voice is here,
And the wail o' slaverie;
But the sun of freedom shines
In my ain countrie!

There's a hope for every woe,
And a balm for every pain,
But the first joys o' our heart
Come never back again.
There's a track upon the deep,

And a path across the sea;
But the weary ne'er return
To their ain countrie!

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'
Wi' sweet bairnies three.

My lanely hearth burned bonnie,
An' smiled my ain Marie;
I've left a' my heart behin'
In my ain countrie.

The bird comes back to summer,

And the blossom to the bee;

But I'll win back, O never,
To my ain countrie.

O, I am leal to high Heaven,
Which aye was leal to me,
An' there I'll meet ye a' soon
Frae my ain countrie!

Allan Cunningham [1784-1842]

FATHER LAND AND MOTHER TONGUE

OUR Father Land! and wouldst thou know
Why we should call it Father Land?

It is that Adam here below

Was made of earth by Nature's hand;

And he, our father made of earth,
Hath peopled earth on every hand;

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:
But Nature, with resistless laws,

Made Adam soon surpass the birds;
She gave him lovely Eve because
If he'd a wife they must have words.

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 where he by chance is born?
Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
Oh, yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Is it alone where freedom is,

Where God is God and man is man?
Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than this?
Oh, yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives

After a life more true and fair,

There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

Where'er a single slave doth pine,

Where'er one man may help another,-
Thank God for such a birthright, brother,-
That spot of earth is thine and mine!
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]