My Country

My Country

"My Country, my Country! - O, there is a charm
And spell, in that sound, which must every heart warm;
Let us burn at the line, let us freeze at the pole,
Pronounce but the sound, and it thrills through the soul.

And where lies the charm in that all potent sound,
That is felt and acknowledged where'er man is found?
And why is our country - the land of our birth,-
The sweetest - the loveliest spot upon earth?

Say - is it in climate? in soil? or in sky?
In gay sunny landscapes that ravish the eye?
In rich golden harvests? In mines of bright ore?
It may be in these - but there's still something more.

The deeds of our fathers, in times that are gone,
Their virtues, their prowess, the fields they have won;
Their struggles for freedom, the toils they endured,
The rights and the blessings for us they procured -

Our music, our language, our laws, our great men,
Who have raised themselves high by the sword or the pen;
Our productions of genius, the fame of our arms,
Our youths' native courage, our maidens' soft charms -

The dreams of our childhood, the scenes of our youth,
When life's stainless current ran placidly smooth;
Our friends, homes, and altars, our substance tho' small,
And One lovely Object, the sweetener of all: -

From these and ten thousand endearments beside,
From these spring the charm that makes country our pride;
And what wanting these, would a paradise be?
A waste - a dark cell - alone rock in the sea.


Then since it is Freedom, and Freedom alone,
That halloweth country, and makes it our own;
May she march with the sun, like the sun may she blaze,
Till the whole earth be gilded and warmed by her rays.

Accurst be the villain, and shunned by mankind,
Who would fetter the body, or trammel the mind;
May his name be detested, himself from earth driven,
Who thus would rob man of the best gift of heaven.

But honoured and blest by the patriot chief,
Who fearlessly struggles for mankind's relief;
In his Country's affections, long, long may he bloom,
And his memory shed an eternal perfume.

And O! my dear Country! wherever I be,
My first - my last prayer shall ascend still for thee,
That thou may yet flourish, as lasting as time,
Unblighted by Slavery, unsullied by Crime."

Rodgers of Glasgow

1:32, p. 128

1827.10.19