Land of my birth, basket laden with all the fruits of life, nay, all the dreams that the poet-bee visits forever as his flower-cups, Of your two rhythms, the story and the deed, I have chosen as my own heart beats, Devoutly I have dedicated you to incantations, to regrets, to wanderings, I have offered my life unto you, and my steps that dream as long journeys over your beauties, Your every province is to me the asylum of a folded wing, the resting-place of a light that was drowned in darkness. Cherishing your beloved dead, I reawakened their hopes in the morning voice of your fountains; amidst the panoply of the sunset I glimpsed your further splendors; The phantoms sent forth their bark upon the streams, and the poems builded their nest amid the woodlands; I would have found in every city a vanished king, in every vale a sleeping lily. O my country! I bore you against my breast as a great quivering bird whose every cry is a memory, whose every pulse an inspiration. And now, when your scorched wings are torn from you, after the fury of this breath of blood and fire, Wounded in my being's depth, weeping I regard your rainbow broken, your fragrance dissolved, your shattered diadem! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE NATIONAL PAINTINGS: COL. TRUMBULL'S 'THE DECLARATION...' by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK STRANGE HURT [SHE KNOWS] by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES THE HIGH TIDE AT [OR, ON THE COAST OF] LINCOLNSHIRE by JEAN INGELOW EARLY RISING by JOHN GODFREY SAXE HYMN FOR ALL SAINTS DAY IN THE MORNING by HENRY ALFORD AT PARTING by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS ANACREON by ANTIPATER OF SIDON MIRTH by EDITH COURTENAY BABBITT SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 35. BALACLAVA by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |