Song from Drake:  O You Beautiful Land

I

O you beautiful land,

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright

With the flowery largesse of May

Sweet from the palm of her hand

Out-flung, till the hedges grew white

As the green-arched billows with spray.

II

White from the fall of her feet

The daisies awake in the sun!

Cliff-side and valley and plain

With the breath of the thyme growing sweet

Laugh, for the Spring is begun;

And Love hath turned homeward again.

O you beautiful land!

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright

With the flowery largesse of May

Sweet from the palm of her hand

Out-flung, till the hedges grew white

As the green-arched billows with spray.

III

Where should the home be of Love,

But there, where the hawthorn-tree blows,

And the milkmaid trips out with her pail,

And the skylark in heaven above

Sings, till the West is a rose

And the East is a nightingale?

O you beautiful land!

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright

With the flowery largesse of May

Sweet from the palm of her hand

Out-flung, till the hedges grew white

As the green-arched billows with spray.

IV

There where the sycamore trees

Are shading the satin-skinned kine,

And oaks, whose brethren of old

Conquered the strength of the seas,

Grow broad in the sunlight and shine

Crowned with their cressets of gold;

O you beautiful land!

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright

With the flowery largesse of May

Sweet from the palm of her hand

Out-flung, till the hedges grew white

As the green-arched billows with spray.

V

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright

With rose-coloured cloudlets above;

Billowing broad and grand

Where the meadows with blossom are white

For the foot-fall, the foot-fall of Love.

O you beautiful land!

VI

How should we sing of thy beauty,

England, mother of men,

We that can look in thine eyes

And see there the splendour of duty

Deep as the depth of their ken,

Wide as the ring of thy skies.

VII

O you beautiful land,

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright

With the flowery largesse of May

Sweet from the palm of her hand

Out-flung, till the hedges grew white

As the green-arched billows with spray.

O you beautiful land! . . .