Land of my birth, farewell! Thy shores are fading
In the dark distance, and the ocean’s waves
Are hiding thee from view; while, sadly aiding
To dim my vision of thy snowy cliffs,
My tears unbidden start. O happy land!
I did not know how much I loved thee, till
The breezes bore me from thee, and I gazed
A long last look.
I left thee when a child;
And Afric’s summer suns full forty years
Have burned upon my head, since in thy groves
My boyish footsteps wandered. But my heart
Was yet unwithered, and could quiver still
When sounded on my ear thy name of glory.

While oceans rolled between us, in my dreams
My thoughts were of thee: but in waking hours
I scarcely dared to hope to see thee more.
I lingered o’er the story of thy fame,
And joyed to claim thee as my native isle;
A day-star to the nations, that would fain
Follow, though from afar, thy track of light,
And in its beams find their own way to freedom.
In the far solitudes of regions dark
With heathen gloom, my pensive soul has mused,
And I have sighed to sun me in the light
Which long has been thy halo; light from heaven,
Amidst the brightness of whose gladdening rays
Thy temples, halls, and palaces have stood
Irradiate. But it might not, could not be.

At length I saw thee once again! and then
How thrilled my very heart-core as thy coasts
Loomed through the mists of morning on my view,
And thy proud vision of historic glory
Marched in its dioramic grandeur past!
I leaped upon thy freeborn soil once more:
Thy fields were laughing, glad with spring-tide flowers,
Thy greenwoods waving in the fresh wind’s breath;
Thy streams, bounding from winter’s cold embrace,
Threaded the vales with silver; while I stood
And gazed with rapture, fresh and pure as boyhood’s,
In ’wildering ecstasy. And then I swept
On steam-wings o’er thy plains, and round thy hills,
And down thy vales, ’mongst beauty ever changing:
Now looking on the cornfield’s waving gladness;
Now drinking fragrance from the hayfield’s breath;
Now wondering like a child, as ivied towers,
And slender church-spires, from their sheltering groves
Pointing to heaven, and old baronial halls,
Standing apart amidst their dark woods’ pride,
And crumbling castle-keeps, that tell of times
When warders blew their horns, and mailÈd knights
Broke spears and shattered helms in tournament,
As these, and thousand more, went sailing by:
Till plunged at last amidst the ’whelming tide
Of thy great city’s life, I sank, a drop,
Into its vast and restless ocean-whirl.
. . . . . . . . . .
But is it so? And I have really trod
Thy soil again? Or did I only dream?
Methought I mingled with thy multitudes,
And saw the swarms of thy industrial hives
Plying their ceaseless task, and piling stores
To meet the wide world’s wants. Methought I saw
Thy quickened life-blood of commercial being
Pour through its iron veins the vital stream,
Infusing universal energy.
Did not thy glorious structures rise before me—
Houses of mercy, halls and kingly courts?
Did not imperial Windsor glad my eyes,
Where England’s banner, free and proud, was waving;
Brother-like greeting the free winds of heaven?
Did I not wander through the gorgeous halls
Where England’s senators, in trumpet tones,
Have poured forth eloquence that awed the world?
Where, mildly ruling, sits a mother Queen,—
Her real throne a nation’s loving heart.
Have I not stood within thy sacred fanes,
Listening entranced, as billowing music rolled,
And distant, broke upon the sculptured stone
Like ocean’s waves upon their rocky bounds?
And—tenderer, dearer recollection still—
My mother’s and my childhood’s humble home,
With childhood’s memories clustering thick around it:
Did I not stand again upon its threshold,
And greet my childhood’s playmates? Ah! how changed!
Or was all this a dream? A happy dream,
That rose in brightness, and then passed away
For ever? No! It was not all a dream.
The welcome of warm hearts was real, and then
The glow of friendships formed was no illusion.
Men great and good have spoken sacred truth;
And I have listened with enraptured ears,
As eloquence of Heaven’s own kindling burst
In burning power from consecrated lips.
And I have seen the Church’s standard-bearers:
Men, crowned in hoary age with silver glory,
Have blessed me in the Master’s sacred name,
And bidden me God-speed in God’s great service.
And I have mingled with the throngs that sent
Up to high heaven their swelling song of praise,
That, as “the voice of many waters,” rose
Exultant from the lips and hearts of thousands,
When the glad tidings came that “God was raised
Up from His holy habitation” and
Was pouring forth His Spirit on the nations.

I did not dream when I beheld the light
Of holy rapture beam from thousand eyes:
I was not dreaming when I shared the glow
Of wondering gratitude with thousand hearts.
And when our “Hallelujah” rent the skies,
And our rapt spirits felt the bliss of heaven
Descend to meet us in the golden cloud
Of God’s own presence, ’twas a glorious truth,
A joy to feed the soul upon for ever!