C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Homes of England
By Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835)
T
How beautiful they stand
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O’er all the pleasant land!
The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam;
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.
Around their hearths by night
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!
There woman’s voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood’s tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell’s chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds in that still time
Of breeze and leaf are born.
By thousands on her plains
They are smiling o’er the silvery brooks
And round the hamlet fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the birds beneath their eaves.
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green forever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child’s glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!