WHERE IS THE BETTER COUNTRY?
Where is the better country, where?
Ye who have found it, lead me there;
I long have sought a happy home,
Yet weary, weary, still I roam;
I’ve tried by turns each pathway bright;
My sun goes down, and all is night;
I grope my way in sad despair;
Where is the better country, where?
I catch at every beaming ray
That shines upon my weary way;
I’m taken captive by a flower,
That blooms and withers in an hour;
And yet, whene’er my bosom tries
To shield a flower, there it dies:
Away the withered thing I throw,
And sadly on my way I go.
An infant in its cradle smiled—
Its look of joy my heart beguiled;
But, when I gazed a moment more,
Its joyous brow was clouded o’er;
Then, sick at heart, I heav’d a sigh,
And turn’d away my tearful eye;
How vain the search for pleasure here!
With every smile there comes a tear.
I saw a shining beauteous thing—
It hung before me glittering;
They call’d it friendship, and with joy,
My hand I stretch’d to seize the toy.
It proved to be a gilded dart,
Which, ere I knew it, pierced my heart!
Then, faint and bleeding, thus I thought—
“Experience must be dearly bought.”
I saw the star-bespangled sky,
And there I fixed my earnest eye;
One star grew brighter to my gaze,
For me it seem’d to shed its rays;
I thought if I could soar afar,
I’d hie me to that lonely star:
Ah me! ’twas but a meteor’s light;
It fled away—that star so bright!
As carelessly I roved along,
I heard a soft, delightful song;
I turn’d aside to catch the sound,
But no sweet songster could be found.
It was my own Canary bird,
Whose faint, receding notes I heard;
He breathed “farewell” in every tone—
The cage was there—the bird had flown!
A beauteous, meek eyed, carrier dove
Came flying with the speed of love;
I caught, and kiss’d him o’er and o’er,
I knew the bird a letter bore;
I broke the seal with eager hand,
For tidings from a distant land;
But ah! I shudder’d while I read,
It told me one I loved—was dead!
The falling of a far cascade
Most sweet, harmonious music made;
It charm’d me oft at evening-tide,
And once, by moonlight, there I hied;
But, when I reach’d the chosen spot,
The louder music pleased me not;
’Tis thus with many things I meet,
They’re only at a distance sweet.
Long, long ago I left my home;
For many years ’twas mine to roam;
And when at last I there return’d,
O! how my heart within me burn’d!
But every thing I saw was chang’d,
And from my home I felt estrang’d;
And then I cried in deep despair,
“Where is the better country, where?”
O! he whose heart is fix’d below,
Finds disappointment, change, and woe!
Where are the never clouded skies—
O! where the joy that never dies?
Where is the music ever sweet,
O! where the friends I long to meet?
No more earth’s changing scenes allure,—
Where is the land all bright and pure?
The land where all is pure and bright,
That better land, is “out of sight!”
And I must journey here awhile,
And see by turns, the tear, the smile;
Yet, even now, ’tis bliss to me,
That I one day that land shall see,
And joyful wing my eager flight
To that sweet country—out of sight.
Charleston, January 19, 1841.