VERSES.

NEW ENGLAND.

O, TELL me not 't is Fancy's voice
That whispers in my ear;
For I know 't is Nature's holy tone

That breathes in silence here.

From the silence of my bosom

It bids me cease to roam,

And to seek once more the rock-girt shore, And the green fields of my home.

Why do I love that rocky land,

And that inclement sky?

I know alone I love it,

But ask, and care, not why.

As round my friends my feelings twine,
So round my native shore;

God placed the instinct in my heart,

And I seek to know no more.

Then howl, ye thunder-tempests,
For ye lull my soul to sleep;
And in dreams I hear the ocean-wind,
And the surges of the deep.

1835.

Again the clouds of winter

Sweep o'er the summer sky,

And the ground rings hard beneath my tread,
And the snow comes drifting by.

My fathers' bones, New England,
Sleep in thy hallowed ground;
My living kin, New England,

In thy shady paths are found;
And though my body dwelleth here,
And my weary feet here roam,
My spirit and my hopes are still
In thee, my own loved home.