The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 388, September 5, 1829 by Various
page 33 of 52 (63%)
page 33 of 52 (63%)
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There, marking o'er his farm's expanding ring New fleeces whiten and new fruits upspring. The grey-haired swain, his grandchild sporting round, Shall walk at eve his little empire's bound, Emblazed with ruby vintage, ripening corn, And verdant rampart of Acacian thorn, While, mingling with the scent his pipe exhales, The orange-grove's and fig-tree's breath prevails; Survey with pride beyond a monarch's spoil, His honest arm's own subjugated soil; And summing all the blessings God has given, Put up his patriarchal prayer to Heaven, That when his bones shall here repose in peace, The scions of his love may still increase, And o'er a land where life has ample room, In health and plenty innocently bloom. Delightful land, in wildness ev'n benign, The glorious past is ours, the future thine! As in a cradled Hercules, we trace The lines of empire in thine infant face. What nations in thy wide horizon's span Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man! What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam. Where now the panther laps a lonely stream. And all but brute or reptile life is dumb! Land of the free! thy kingdom is to come, Of states, with laws from Gothic bondage burst, And creeds by charter'd priesthood's unaccurst; |
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