SIGHT OF NATIVE LAND. 381
Not by wealth or taste alone
Are your inmate treasures shown ;
Though perchance your firesides show
Signs of penury and woe,
Yet where er with prayerful sigh
Sits the mother patiently,
Plying still her needle s care
For the child that slumbers there,
"Whereso er in cottage low
Rocks the cradle to and fro,
There the eye of God doth turn,
There the lamp of soul doth burn :
Roofs ! that nurse this deathless light,
Precious are ye in His sight.
Throngs ! I see ye on the strand, As the steamer nears the land, Some might fortune s favorites seem, Borne on pride or pleasure s stream ; Others, marked by weary care, Labor s rugged livery wear ; Ye, who humbly dig the soil, Brow and hand embrowned with toil, If ye eat my country s bread, If to work her weal ye tread, Faithful even in lowliest sphere, Friends ye are, like kindred dear.
Since I last these scenes surveyed, Who have in the tomb been laid ?
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