Page:Not understood - and other poems (IA notunderstoodoth00braciala).pdf/98

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Within his breast, pure warm emotions start
  When thoughts are kindled there of Fatherland.
Here, in young Scotia, we have glens and hills,
  As wild and grand as those we left at home;
Our pastures are as green, as clear our rills,
  Our coasts are guarded by as fierce a foam.
O’er cliffs and crags, ravines and lowly dells
  Borne on the clouds, wild, weird romance looks down;
And Poesy, Heaven’s purest offspring, dwells
  Heedless of Cynic’s sneer or Stoic’s frown.

What lack we then, in this new land of ours?
  Why come old memories on the midnight blast,
To woo us back to childhood’s happy hours,
  And let us taste delight that cannot last?
Why does the eagle, ere he speeds away,
  Wheel round his eyrie with an anxious care?
Why lingers he, for yonder is his prey?
  Ah! by a mother he was sheltered there.
Why do the bright Spring morning’s sparkling showers
  Ascend on Sol’s warm rays again from earth:
Why do they leave the lovely buds and flowers?
  Because they cling to Heaven, their place of birth.

And thus it is with man. Where’er he strays
  On distant plains, he turns his longing eyes
To that dear spot, veiled by the ocean’s haze,
  Where fancy whispers him the old land lies.
The ideal mirror shows to Albion’s son
  His home surrounded by the leafy dells;
From wood and copse he sees the streamlets run,
  Endeared to him by recollection’s spells.
The Emigrant from Erin’s spray-girt isle
  Oft hears her wild harp singing on the breeze;
Its mournful cadence steals a tearful smile
  And wafts it to the old home o’er the seas.

Then Scotia, land of legendary lore,
  Can thy fond children cease to honour thee ?
Nursed on the bosom of thy rugged shore,
  Ingratitude shall never come from me;