Poems of Felicia Hemans in The Juvenile Forget Me Not, 1829/Swiss Home-sickness
Taken from The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 1828, page 545
Swiss Home Sickness.
Wherefore so sad and faint, my heart?
The stranger's land is fair;
Yet weary, weary, still thou art—
What find'st thou wanting there?—
What wanting?—All, oh! all I love!
Am I not lonely here?
Through a fair land, in sooth, I rove;
But what like Home is dear?
My Home!—oh thither would I fly,
Where the free air is sweet,
My father's voice, my mother's eye,
My own wild hills to greet.
My hills, with all their soaring steeps,
With all their glaciers bright,
Where in his joy the chamois leaps,
Mocking the hunter's might.
Here no familiar look I trace,
I touch no friendly hand;
No child laughs kindly in my face
As in my own sweet land.