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| THERE is a land, of every land the pride, | |
| Beloved by Heaven o’er all the world beside, | |
| Where brighter suns dispense serener light, | |
| And milder moons imparadise the night; | |
| A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, | 5 |
| Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth: | |
| The wandering mariner, whose eye explores | |
| The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, | |
| Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, | |
| Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air. | 10 |
| In every clime, the magnet of his soul, | |
| Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole; | |
| For in this land of Heaven’s peculiar race, | |
| The heritage of nature’s noblest grace, | |
| There is a spot of earth supremely blest, | 15 |
| A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, | |
| Where man, creation’s tyrant, casts aside | |
| His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, | |
| While in his softened looks benignly blend | |
| The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend. | 20 |
| Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife, | |
| Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life: | |
| In the clear heaven of her delightful eye | |
| An angel-guard of love and graces lie; | |
| Around her knees domestic duties meet, | 25 |
| And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. | |
| “Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?” | |
| Art thou a man?—a patriot?—look around; | |
| O, thou shalt find, howe’er thy footsteps roam, | |
| That land thy country, and that spot thy home! | 30 |
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| Man, through all ages of revolving time, | |
| Unchanging man, in every varying clime, | |
| Deems his own land of every land the pride, | |
| Beloved by Heaven o’er the world beside; | |
| His home the spot of earth supremely blest, | 35 |
| A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. | |
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