MY NATIVE LAND.

I love my land, but with a love so strangeThat reason over it no victory knows.Her glory, bought in bloodshed’s stern exchange,Her ever-confident and proud repose,The sacred annals of her ancient might,Arouse in me no fancies of delight.Nay! but I love (the why I cannot say)Her cold steppes in their silent majesty,Her waving woodlands in their boundless play,Her flooded rivers spreading like the sea.I love to drive adown her country lanes,With longing glance piercing the shades of night,Sighing for rest, to catch thro’ distant panesThe glimmering of some mournful village light.I love to see the smoke of smouldering stalk;To watch the waggons o’er the wide waste wend;Or, on hillside, ’mid yellowing fields, to markThe pair of birch trees their white arms extend.With a delight, unknown except to few,Love I to note the well-filled threshing-floor,The peasant’s hut, half hidden in the straw,The shutters with quaint carvings covered o’er;And with no less delight, on holiday,From dewy eve till noon of night, to gazeUpon the dance, with stamp and whistling gay,Amid the roar the merry rustics raise.

I love my land, but with a love so strange

That reason over it no victory knows.

Her glory, bought in bloodshed’s stern exchange,

Her ever-confident and proud repose,

The sacred annals of her ancient might,

Arouse in me no fancies of delight.

Nay! but I love (the why I cannot say)Her cold steppes in their silent majesty,Her waving woodlands in their boundless play,Her flooded rivers spreading like the sea.I love to drive adown her country lanes,With longing glance piercing the shades of night,Sighing for rest, to catch thro’ distant panesThe glimmering of some mournful village light.I love to see the smoke of smouldering stalk;To watch the waggons o’er the wide waste wend;Or, on hillside, ’mid yellowing fields, to markThe pair of birch trees their white arms extend.With a delight, unknown except to few,Love I to note the well-filled threshing-floor,The peasant’s hut, half hidden in the straw,The shutters with quaint carvings covered o’er;And with no less delight, on holiday,From dewy eve till noon of night, to gazeUpon the dance, with stamp and whistling gay,Amid the roar the merry rustics raise.

Nay! but I love (the why I cannot say)

Her cold steppes in their silent majesty,

Her waving woodlands in their boundless play,

Her flooded rivers spreading like the sea.

I love to drive adown her country lanes,

With longing glance piercing the shades of night,

Sighing for rest, to catch thro’ distant panes

The glimmering of some mournful village light.

I love to see the smoke of smouldering stalk;

To watch the waggons o’er the wide waste wend;

Or, on hillside, ’mid yellowing fields, to mark

The pair of birch trees their white arms extend.

With a delight, unknown except to few,

Love I to note the well-filled threshing-floor,

The peasant’s hut, half hidden in the straw,

The shutters with quaint carvings covered o’er;

And with no less delight, on holiday,

From dewy eve till noon of night, to gaze

Upon the dance, with stamp and whistling gay,

Amid the roar the merry rustics raise.

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