My Country

I love my country's pine-clad hills,

Her thousand bright and gushing rills,

Her sunshine and her storms;

Her rough and rugged rocks that rear

Their hoary heads high in the air

In wild fantastic forms.

I love her rivers deep and wide,

Those mighty streams that seaward glide

To seek the ocean's breast;

Her smiling fields, her pleasant vales,

Her shady dells, her flowery dales,

The haunts of peaceful rest.

Her forests and her valleys fair,

Her flowers that scent the morning air,

Have all their charms for me;

But more I love my country's name,

Those words that echo deathless fame,—

"The land of liberty."

—Hesperian

I see the living tide roll on,

It crowns with fiery towers

The icy capes of Labrador,

The Spaniard's "land of flowers!"

It streams beyond the splintered ridge

That parts the northern showers,

From eastern rock to sunset wave,

The Continent is ours.

-O. W. HOLMES