An emigrant's home letters/The Emigrant's Farewell to His Country
THE EMIGRANTS FAREWELL TO HIS COUNTRY.
I go, my native land, far o'er
The solitary sea,
To regions, where the very stars
Of Heaven will strangers be,
To some untrodden wilderness
Of Australasia's land,—
A home, which man has here denied,
I seek at God's own hand.
I have a mother, ill and poor,
A father, too, in years,
And have no parting gift for them,
No! nothing save my tears.
I leave them in a busy town,
Where pale mechanics toil
In irksome manufactories,
Shut from the sun and soil.
Fair visions yet, my native land,
Will o'er my lone heart come.
Whene'er I think of friendship's haunts,
Or childhood's peaceful home.
Or love's delightful wanderings,
When she, who shares my lot.
First plucked from 'mong the violets
The sweet forget-me-not.
And then the beauty of such dreams
Will radiate o'er my heart.
Till bitterly I weep, to think
That we were forced to part.
And Heaven two sinless infants lent,
Whose graves are told with thine—
They came and went so angel-like,
I dare not call them mine.
And memory, when her mystic chain
Back o'er the past she flings.
Nothing so beautiful as they
From all her treasures brings.
For their sweet sakes, my native land!
Even if I loved not thee.
My heart would hover o'er thee still.
Where'er my home might be!
Where will my home be? I'll not ask;
I would not now be told!
Enough to know 'tis God who will
In all my being hold,
I do not know what lovely flowers
May deck the new world's vales;
But, though the brightest bloom abound,
If spring no primrose hails,
Its absent beauties I shall mourn,
For I have loved that flower;
And my heart's friends have loved it too
From childhood's earliest hour.