The pride to rear an independent shed,
And give the lips we love unborrowed bread :
To see a world, from shadowy forests won,
In youthful beauty wedded to the sun;
To skirt our home with harvests widely sown,
And call the blooming landscape all our own,
Our children's heritage, in prospect long.
These are the hopes, high-minded hopes and strong,
That beckon England's wanderers o'er the brine,
To realms where foreign constellations shine;
Where streams from undiscovered fountains roll,
And winds shall fan them from th' Antarctic pole..
And what though doomed to shores so far apart
From England's home, that ev'n the homesick heart
Quails, thinking, ere that gulf can be recrossed,
How large a space of fleeting life is lost:
Yet there, by time, their bosoms shall be changed,
And strangers once shall cease to sigh estranged,
But jocund in the year's long sunshine roam,
That yields their sickle twice its harvest-home.
There, marking o'er his farm's expanding ring
New fleeces whiten and new fruits upspring,
The grey-haired swain, his grandchild sporting round,
Shall walk at eve his little empire's bound,
Emblazed with ruby vintage, ripening corn,
And verdant rampart of acacian thorn,
While, mingling with the scent his pipe exhales,
The orange-grove's and fig-tree's breath prevails;
Survey with pride beyond a monarch's spoil,
His honest arm's own subjugated soil;
And summing all the blessings God has given,
Put up his patriarchal prayer to Heaven, .
That when his bones shall here repose in
The scions of his love may still increase,
And o'er a land where life has ample room,
In health and plenty innocently bloom.
Delightful land, in wildness ev'n benign,
The glorious past is ours, the future thine!
As in a cradled Hercules, we trace
The lines of empire in thine infant face.
What nations in thy wide horizon's span
Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man!
What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam,
Where now the panther laps a lonely stream,
And all but brute or reptile life is dumb!
Land of the free! thy kingdom is to come,
Of states, with laws from Gothic bondage burst,
And creeds by chartered priesthoods unaccurst:
Of navies, hoisting their emblazoned flags,
Where shipless seas now wash unbeaconed crags;
Of hosts reviewed in dazzling files and squares,
Their pennoned trumpets breathing native airs,-
For minstrels thou shalt have of native fire,
And maids to sing the songs themselves inspire :-
Our very speech, methinks, in after time,
Shall catch th' Ionian blandness of thy clime;
And whilst the light and luxury of thy skies
Give brighter smiles to beauteous woman's eyes,
The Arts, whose soul is love, shall all spontaneous rise.
Untracked in deserts lies the marble mine,
Undug the ore that midst thy roofs shall shine;
Unborn the hands-but born they are to be-
Fair Australasia, that shall give to thee
Proud temple-domes, with galleries winding high,
So vast in space, so just in symmetry,
They widen to the contemplating eye,
With colonnaded aisles in long array,
And windows that enrich the flood of day
O'er tesselated pavements, pictures fair,
And niched statues breathing golden air.
Nor there, whilst all that's seen bids Fancy swell,
Shall Music's voice refuse to seal the spell;
But choral hymns shall wake enchantment round,
And organs yield their tempests of sweet sound.
Meanwhile, ere Arts triumphant reach their goal,
How blest the years of pastoral life shall roll!
Ev'n should some wayward hour the settler's mind
Brood sad on scenes for ever left behind,
Yet not a pang that England's name imparts,
Shall touch a fibre of his children's hearts;
Bound to that native land by nature's bond,
Full little shall their wishes rove beyond
Its mountains blue, and melon-skirted streams,
Since childhood loyed and dreamt of in their dreams.
How many a name, to us uncouthly wild,
Shall thrill that region's patriotic child,
And bring as sweet thoughts o'er his bosom's chords,
As aught that's named in song to us affords!
Dear shall that river's margin be to him,
Where sportive first he bathed his boyish limb,
Or petted birds, still brighter than their bowers,
Or twined his tame young kangaroo with flowers.
But more magnetic yet to memory
Shall be the sacred spot, still blooming nigh,
The bower of love, where first his bosom burned,
And smiling passion saw its smile returned.
Go forth and prosper then, emprising band:
May He, who in the hollow of his hand
The ocean holds, and rules the whirlwind's sweep,.
Assuage its wrath, and guide you on the deep!
OH! scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,
Ye green waving woods on the margin of Cart,
How blest in the morning of life I have strayed,
By the stream of the vale and the grass-covered glade!
Then, then every rapture was young and sincere,
Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimmed by a tear,
And a sweeter delight every scene seemed to lend,
That the mansion of peace was the home of a FRIEND.
Now the scenes of my childhood and dear to my heart,
All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart;
Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease,
For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace.
But hushed be the sigh that untimely complains, While Friendship and all its enchantment remains, While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime, Untainted by chance, unabated by time.
SUGGESTED BY AN APOLOGUE IN THE WORKS OF FRANKLIN.
Two spirits reached this world of ours :
The lightning's locomotive powers
Were slow to their agility:
In broad day-light they moved incog,
Enjoying, without mist or fog,
Entire invisibility.
The one, a simple cherub lad,
Much interest in our planet had,
Its face was so romantic;
He couldn't persuade himself that man
Was such as heavenly rumours ran,
A being base and frantic.
The elder spirit, wise and cool,
Brought down the youth as to a school;
But strictly on condition,
Whatever they should see or hear,
With mortals not to interfere;
'Twas not in their commission.
They reached a sovereign city proud,
Whose emperor prayed to God aloud,
With all his people kneeling,
And priests performed religious rites : Come," said the younger of the sprites, "This shows a pious feeling."
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