The Bijou

The Bijou;

or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser

London: William Pickering,

1828

[Page 318] page image and link
Our Native Land
By Delta
Our Native Land1 1
Moriens dulces reminiscitur Argos. 2


The halo round the Seraph's head 3
Too purified for thing of Earth, 4
Is not more beautifully bright 5
Than that celestial zone oflight, 6
Which Nature's magic hand haath shed 7
Around the land which gave us birth. 8


Oh! — be that country beautified 9
With woods that wave, and streams that glide, 10
Where bounteous air and earth unfold 11
The gales of health, and crops of gold; 12
Let flowers and fields be ever fair; 13
Let fragrance load the languid air; 14
Be vines in every valley there; 15
And olives on each mountain side; — 16
Or — let it be a wilderness 17
Where heaven and earth oppose in gloom; 18

[Page 319] page image and link
Where the low sun all faintly glows 19
O'er regions of perennial snows; 20
Still 'tis the country not the less 21
Of him, who sows what ne'er may bless 22
His labours with autumnal bloom! 23


Yes! partial clans, in every clime, 24
Since first commenced the march of Time, 25
Where'er they rest — there'er they roam — 26
All unforgot, 27
Have still a spot 28


Which Memory loves, and heart calls — home! 29
From where Antarctic oceans roar 30
Round Patadonia's mountain shore; 31
To where grim Hecla's cone aspires, 32
With sides of snow, and throat of fires! 33
from The Bijou, 1828, pp. 318-319
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Notes

1. [Note to "Our Native Land":] A poem identical to this one appears in the 1852 Poetical Works by David Macbeth Moir. [Poetess Archive Editor.] Back