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Translated by William Sidney Walker
THOU spot of earth, where from the breast of woe | |
| My eye first rose, and in the purple glow | |
| Of morning, and the dewy smile of love, | |
| Marked the first gleamings of the power above; | |
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| Where, wondering at its birth, my spirit rose, | 5 |
| Called forth from nothing by his word sublime, | |
| To run its mighty race of joys and woes, | |
| The proud coeval of immortal time; | |
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| Thou spot unequalled! where the thousand lyres | |
| Of Spring first met me on her balmy gale, | 10 |
| And my rapt fancy heard celestial choirs | |
| In the wild wood-notes and my mother’s tale; | |
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| Where my first trembling accents were addressed | |
| To lisp the dear, the unforgotten name, | |
| And, clasped to mild Affection’s throbbing breast, | 15 |
| My spirit caught from her the kindling flame: | |
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| My country! have I found a spot of joy | |
| Through the wide precincts of the checkered earth, | |
| So calm, so sweet, so guiltless of alloy, | |
| As thou art to his soul whose best employ | 20 |
| Is to recall the joys that blessed his birth? | |
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| O, nowhere blooms so bright the summer rose, | |
| As where youth cropt it from the valley’s breast. | |
| O, nowhere are the downs so soft as those | |
| That pillowed infancy’s unbroken rest. | 25 |
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| In vain the partial sun on other vales | |
| Pours liberal down a more exhaustless ray, | |
| And vermeil fruits, that blush along their dales, | |
| Mock the pale products of our scanty day; | |
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| In vain, far distant from the land we love, | 30 |
| The world’s green breast soars higher to the sky; | |
| O, what were heaven itself, if lost above | |
| Were the dear memory of departed joy? | |
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| Range ocean, melt in amorous forests dim, | |
| O’er icy peaks with sacred horror bend, | 35 |
| View life in thousand forms, and hear the hymn | |
| Of love and joy from thousand hearts ascend, | |
| And trace each blessing, where round freedom’s shrine | |
| Pure faith and equal laws their shadows twine; | |
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| Yet, wheresoe’er thou roam’st, to lovelier things | 40 |
| With mingled joy and grief thy spirit springs; | |
| And all bright Arno’s pastoral lays of love | |
| Yield to the sports, where through the tangling grove | |
| The mimic falcon chased the little dove. | |
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| O, what are Eloisa’s bowers of cost, | 45 |
| Matched with the bush where hid in berries white | |
| Mine arms around my infant love were crossed? | |
| What Jura’s peak, to that upon whose height | |
| I strove to grasp the moon, and where the flight | |
| Of my first thought was in my Maker lost? | 50 |
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| No! here—but here in this lone paradise, | |
| Which Frederic, like the peaceful angel, gilds,— | |
| Where my loved brethren mix in social ties | |
| From Norway’s rocks to Holstein’s golden fields; | |
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| O Denmark! in thy quiet lap reclined, | 55 |
| The dazzling joys of varied earth forgot, | |
| I find the peace I strove in vain to find, | |
| The peace I never found where thou wert not. | |
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| The countless wonders of my devious youth, | |
| The forms of early love and early truth, | 60 |
| Rise on my view, in Memory’s colors dressed; | |
| And each lost angel smiles more lovingly, | |
| And every star that cheered my early sky | |
| Shines fairer in this happy port of rest! | |
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