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RETURN TO NATIVE LAND.
77
Pours the thrush his carol fair?
Glides the crimson oriole there?
Have ye o'er their callow young
Still your kind protection flung?
Blessings on ye! Dews and rain
Fill with sap each healthful vein;
Blessings on ye! Wear serene
Nature's coronal of green,
And no woodman's savage blade
Dare your birthright to invade.
Roofs! that in the vista rise,
Rude, or towering toward the skies,
Not by wealth or taste alone
Are your innate treasures shown,
Tho', perchance, your hearth-stones show
Signs of penury and woe,
Yet where'er with peaceful sigh
Sits the mother patiently,
Plying still her needle's care
For the child that slumbers there.
Wheresoe'er in cottage low
Rocks the cradle to and fro,
