England

CLOUD-GIRDED land, brave land beyond the sea!
Land of my father's love! how oft I yearn
Toward thy famed ancestral shores to turn,
Roaming thy glorious realm in liberty;
All English growths would sacred seem to me,
From opulent oak to flickering wayside fern;
Much from her delicate daisies could I learn,
And all her home-bred flowers by lake or lea.
But most I dream of Shropshire's meadow grass,
Its grazing herds, and sweet hay-scented air;
An ancient hall near a slow rivulet's mouth;
A church vine-clad; a graveyard glooming South;
These are the scenes through which I fain would pass;
There lived my sires, whose sacred dust is there.