Poems (Cook)/Our Native Song

by Eliza Cook

OUR NATIVE SONG.

Our Native Song,—our Native Song!
 Oh, where is he who loves it not?
The spell it holds is deep and strong,
 Where'er we go, whate'er our lot.
Let other music greet our ear
 With thrilling fire or dulcet tone;
We speak to praise, we pause to hear,
 But yet—oh yet—tis not our own!
The anthem chant, the ballad wild,
 The notes that we remember long—
The theme we sung with lisping tongue—
 'Tis this we love—our Native Song!

The one who bears the felon's brand,
 With moody brow and darken'd name,
Thrust meanly from his father-land,
 To languish out a life of shame;
Oh, let him hear some simple strain—
 Some lay his mother taught her boy—
He'll feel the charm, and dream again
 Of home, of innocence, and joy.
A sigh will burst, the drops will start,
 And all of virtue buried long—
The best, the purest in his heart,—
 Is waken'd by his Native Song.

Self-exiled from our place of birth,
 To climes more fragrant, bright and gay;
The memory of our own fair earth
 May chance awhile to fade away:
But should some minstrel echo fall,
 Of chords that breathe Old England's fame;
Our souls will burn, our spirits yearn,
 True to the land we love and claim.
The high—the low—in weal or woe,
 Be sure there's something coldly wrong
About the heart that does not glow
 To hear its own, its Native Song.