Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

I Dearly Love the Free

I DEARLY love this happy land,

Its rivers rolling wide,

Its forests green, its silvery lakes,

Its mountains in their pride;

Beneath its banner’s starry folds,

The wand’rer seeketh rest;

The home of true and gallant hearts,

The hope of the oppress’d.

O! still most dear, this country fair

Must ever prove to me,

For well I love her noble sons;

I dearly love the free!

Where late the savage, bold and brave,

The forest wide did roam,

The son of Nature, wild and free,

In Nature’s sylvan home;

The city, in her health and pride,

Now rears her hundred spires;

No more is heard the sound of war

Around his council fires;

How fair, and bright, and beautiful,

This land appears to me,

I love it well and truly,

For I dearly love the free!

In every clime beneath the sun

Her banner bright is known,

Her honour, wealth, and greatness,

Earth’s mighty nations own;

The tide of her prosperity,

Which onward still must roll,

While freedom’s stripes are waving,

To cheer each gallant soul;

There’s every tie to bind true hearts,

Fair country, unto thee,

Who love, as I do dearly love,

The bold, the brave, the free!

In distant climes, in search of change,

I do not sigh to roam,

Thy banner gives protection,

Thy ample soil a home;

Here plenty yields her blessings,

With a rich and liberal hand,

And peace her downy pinions spread

Above this fertile land;

Then be thou still my home of joy,

Until life’s sands are gone,

And let me have a grave in thee,

Thou land of Washington!