England

Who comes to England not to learn The love for her his fathers bore, Breathing her air, can still return No kindlier than he was before. In vain, for him, from shore to shore Those fathers strewed an alien strand With the loved names that evermore Are native to our ear and land. Who sees the English elm-trees fling Long shadows where his footsteps pass, Or marks the crocuses that spring Sets starlike in the English grass, And sees not, as within a glass, New England’s loved reflection rise,— Mists darker and more dense, alas! Than England’s fogs are in his eyes. And who can walk by English streams, Through sunny meadows gently led, Nor feel, as one who lives in dreams, The wound with which his fathers bled,— The homesick tears which must, unshed, Have dimmed the brave, unfaltering eyes That saw New England’s elms outspread Green branches to her loftier skies? How dear to exiled hearts the sound Of little brooks that run and sing! How dear, in scanty garden ground, The crocus calling back the spring To English hearts remembering! How dear that aching memory Of cuckoo cry and lark’s light wing! And for their sake how dear to me! Who owns not how, so often tried, The bond all trial hath withstood; The leaping pulse, the racial pride In more than common brotherhood; Nor feels his kinship like a flood Rise blotting every dissonant trace,— He is not of the ancient blood! He is not of the Island race!