Land of my heart! above the hills My spirit often floats to thee, To hear once more thy sweet-toned rills, And echo their wild minstrelry: And like a little bird that leaves A cheerless sky for summer-climes, So turn I too from all that grieves, To bathe in light of other times.
O, memory's chain hath many a link, To lead the thirsty heart again Back to the fount, where it may drink So much of joy, so much of pain; Joy, to behold once more the spot Where mirthfulness and we were one; Pain, that our after-life is fraught With gloomy cares that dim its sun.
Oh! I would breathe, land of my heart, One song of humble praise to thee, For I am thine, and thou a part In spirit and in song of me: My voice has blended with thy streams, And claims their immortality, My spirit, chained within thy beams, Still owns their bright captivity.
O, for an angel's voice to-day, To sing, as I would sing, to thee; For mine is wedded to decay, The fate of our mortality; And I would speak in one whose tones Would ring forever through thy hills, Proud as the shout round victor's thrones, Yet gentle as thy gentlest rills.
Blessed, thrice blessed to my heart, The draught thy memory holds to me; I would not from its influence part For all the world can give or see. What are her cold and cautious smiles, To the warm feelings of our youth? Her practiced and deceitful wiles, To childhood's young and ardent truth?
The present hath a boundless scope, Yet all eludes our grasp, we see; Before us is a world of hope, Behind a world of memory. Oft will uncertainties arise Darkening the paths we walk alone; Yet soft and radiant are the skies That circle Memory's flowery throne.
Oh, linked forever, hand in hand, Like soft light to a pleasant spot, Art thou and Memory: where, dear land, Where can she be where thou art not? Let me, then, dwell within her bowers, And dream o'er each old fairy tale, Though tears are sometimes on the flowers, And sighs will haunt the evening gales!
