  OUR Father-land! And would’st thou know Why we should call it Father-land? It is, that Adam here below Was made of earth by Nature’s hand; And he, our father, made of earth, Hath peopled earth on ev’ry hand, And we, in memory of his birth, At first, in Eden’s bowers, they say, No sound of speech had Adam caught, But whistled like a bird all day, And may be ’twas for want of thought. But Nature, with resistless laws, Made Adam soon surpass the birds; She gave him lovely Eve, because, If he’d a wife, they must have words. And so, the native land, I hold, By male descent is proudly mine; The language, as the tale hath told, Was given in the female line. And thus, we see, on either hand, We name our blessings whence they’ve sprung; We call our country Father-land; We call our language Mother-tongue. Samuel Lover. |
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