Charles L. S. Jones

HE comes! he comes, the nation’s guest,

To view the land his valour bless’d;

And crowding millions round him throng

With joyous shout and sounding song!

Around he bends his glistening eyes,

Where Freedom’s countless bands arise,

And with spontaneous offerings greet,

And cast their homage at his feet.

He hears Columbia, great and free,

Whose sons to man ne’er bent the knee,

With one united voice proclaim

A welcome dearer far than fame.

He sees her wide, her fair domains,

Her fattening herds, her flowery plains,

Her cities fair, her land that teems

With ripening crops and freighted streams.

He hears around in buoyance float

The blissful yeoman’s jocund note;

Whilst every thing bespeaks a land

Great, happy, fertile, rich, and grand.

With retrospective eye, he turns

To scenes that memory’s grief inurns,

Where oft his sword had flamed afar,

Wide gleaming o’er the hosts of war.

He views that blood-stain’d, weeping stream,

He hears the war-cry’s threatening scream,

And shouts of victory, that enshrine

In fame’s bright scroll the Brandywine.

Those scenes of carnage, blood, and strife,

With rage, and death, and havoc rife,

When Britain sought the free to bind,

Came thronging on his labouring mind.

But soon he turns from thoughts like these

To present joys of love and peace,

And views once more the happy throng

That round him raise the festive song.

Welcome! they sing, thou valiant son

Of beauteous France, whose valour won

These blessings we with joy prepare,

Far happier that thou deign’st to share!

The hills, the dales, in concert, blend

To greet the nation’s guest and friend

With honours for which conquerors pine!

Thine, hero of the Brandywine!