O yes! I love thee with a boundless love,
Land of my birth; and while I lisp thy name,
Burns in my soul 'an Aetna of pure flame'
Which none can quench nor aught on earth remove.
Back from the shrouded past, as with a spell,
Thy days of glory memory recalls,
And castles rise, and towers, and flanking walls,
And soldiers live, for thee dear land who fell;
But as from dreams of bliss men wake to mourn,
So mourn I when that vision is no more,
And in poor lays thy widowed fate deplore,
Thy trophies gone, thy beauteous laurels torn,
But Time shall yet be mocked;—though these decay,
I see broad streaks of a still brighter day.