Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/75

What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,
What yearnings o'er their forfeit land of birth,
Their distant, dear ones?—
                                    Long, with straining eye
They watch the lessening speck.—Heard ye no shriek
Of anguish, when that bitter loneliness
Sank down into their bosoms?—No! they turn
Back to their dreary, famish'd huts, and pray!—
Pray,—and the ills that haunt this transient life
Fade into air.—Up in each girded breast
There sprang a rooted and mysterious strength,—
A loftiness,—to face a world in arms,—
To strip the pomp from sceptres,—and to lay
Upon the sacred altar, the warm blood
Of slain affections, when they rise between
The soul and God.—
                                     —And can ye deem it strange
That from their planting such a branch should bloom
As nations envy?—Would a germ embalm'd
With prayer's pure tear-drops, strike no deeper root
Than that which mad ambition's hand doth strew
Upon the winds, to reap the winds again?
Hid by its veil of waters, from the hand
Of greedy Europe, their bold vine spread forth
In giant strength.—
                                   —Its early clusters crush'd
In England's wine-press, gave the tyrant host
A draught of deadly wine.——Oh! ye who boast
In your free veins the blood of sires like these,
Lose not their lineaments.—Should Mammon cling
Too close around your heart,—or wealth beget
That bloated luxury which eats the core