White hands were about me, but not my own people's,
Kind hearts, too, but not the kind hearts I had known;
The bells that I heard rang in Sassenach steeples,
And wanted the music I loved in my own.
An' I fancied they scorned me, the poor plant of Erin,
Them roses so gaudy, them thistles so tall;
An' I thought as they tossed their proud heads, it was sneerin'
At my poor lowly leaflets, wid no flower at all.
But by little and little I felt that about me
The soil gathered cheery, and kindly, and warm;