Hail to the land whereon we tread,
    Our fondest boast!
The sepulchre of mighty dead,
The truest hearts that ever bled,
Who sleep on glory’s brightest bed,
    A fearless host:
No slave is here;—our unchained feet
Walk freely, as the...

The Stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O’er all the pleasant land;
The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of...

From “Snow-Bound”
THE SUN that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming...

From “Aurora Leigh”
WHOEVER lives true life, will love true love.
I learned to love that England. Very oft,
Before the day was born, or otherwise
Through secret windings of the afternoons,
I threw my hunters off and plunged myself
Among the deep...

She stands, a thousand-wintered tree,
  By countless morns impearled;
Her broad roots coil beneath the sea,
  Her branches sweep the world;
Her seeds, by careless winds conveyed,
  Clothe the remotest strand
With forests from her scatterings made,...

  NOR force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
    Who north or south, or east or western land,
    Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
  Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
    For God; O ye who in eternal youth
  Speak with a living and...

The Breaking waves dashed high
  On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
  Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark
  The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
  On...