Poems (Jordan)/"The Land o' the Leal"
"THE LAND O' THE LEAL"
The map of that real, invisible world Is drawn on our hearts, and no foreignerUnto its soft winds his flag has unfurled, Or for its speech found an interpreter.
'Tis there hearts embrace in rapture sublime, Whose dwellings are lighted (in olden style!)By love-shining eyes, while, from time to time, Its hearth-fires are fed from Memory's pile.
How foot-scarred the path to its crystal wells, Where Sympathy fills Life's need-hollowed cup!How prompt the response when Joy rings her bells, Bidding neighbors all: "Come hither and sup!"
Beneath God's husbandry, meanings exhale From every pore of that hallowed ground,But Silence, methinks, must utter their tale With the tongue which Feeling for her hath found.
'Tis "the land o' the leal," the true and strong; Whose inhabitants never move away;Where lives walk unmasked their neighbors among, Clad in mail Time's rust can never decay.
There dwelleth my heart, in its native land, And the visible world oft seemeth strange,—For its language is hard to understand, And its people e'er with its changes, change!