The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts
compiled by William Fraser
London: William Pickering,
1828
| [Page 318] |  |
| 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] |  |
| 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 |
 |
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