Our Father Land! and wouldst thou know Why we should call it Father Land? It is that Adam here below Was made of earth by Nature’s hand; And he our father, made of earth, Hath peopled earth on every hand; And we, in memory of his birth, Do call our country Father Land. At first, in Eden’s bowers, they say, No sound of speech had Adam caught, But whistled like a bird all day,— And maybe ’t was for want of thought: But Nature, with resistless laws, Made Adam soon surpass the birds; She gave him lovely Eve because If he ’d a wife they must have words. And so the native land, I hold, By male descent is proudly mine; The language, as the tale hath told, Was given in the female line. And thus we see on either hand We name our blessings whence they ’ve sprung; We call our country Father Land, We call our language Mother Tongue.
Father and Mother Tongue
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