I vow the Fiery Tongue hath caught
Quaint echoes of the passing time;
Thus laughs it at my idle thought,
My longing for a fairer clime:
'So—so you'd like some southern shore,
To gather flowers the winter through,
As if there were on earth no more
For busy human hands to do!
'And guard your Own!—In this, oh mark
High duty and the world's far fate;
Thou art poor deluged Europe's Ark,
Her fortunes on Thy Safety wait;
And—couching lion at her feet—
In all her matron graces drest,
Let free Britannia smiling greet
Her radiant Daughter of the West!
'The broad Atlantic flows between,
But love can bridge the ends of earth;
Of all the lands my race have seen,
These two the rest are more than worth;
Not for their skies, or fruits, or gold,
But for their sturdy growth of Man,
Who walks erect, and will not hold
His life beneath a tyrant's ban.
'Yet do not curl your lips with scorn
That others are not great as ye;
Your fathers fought ere ye were born,
And died that thus it now should be!
I tell ye, spirits walk unseen,
Excepting by the soul's strong sight;
Hampden and Washington, I ween,
Are leaders yet in Freedom's fight!'
It ceased; but oh, Its words of fire
Had dropped upon my Northman's heart,
Rebuked a moment's vain desire,
And slain it like a hunter's dart;
Oh, welcome now the slippery hail,
And welcome winter's biting blast,
Ye braced our sires; they still prevail
Who triumphed through the stormy past.
And as beside the ruddy blaze
We muse or talk of mighty things,
In clarion tone one little phrase
Still through the heart's deep echoes rings:
'Our Hearths—our Homes—beyond compare!'
Those charmèd circles whence there rise
The steadfast souls that do and dare,
And shape a Nation's destinies!
There, pile the fagots high—aslant—
And let them crackle out their hymn;
There is no logic—that I grant—
In wilful words of woman's whim:
And yet I feel the links that glide
'Twixt English Hearths and Liberty,
And track how We—our truest pride—
First sheltered Her Divinity!
—Ladies' Companion.