God of my Fathers

Dear to my spirit, Scotland, hast thou been, Since infant years, in all thy glens of green ! Land of my love, where every sound and sight Comes in soft melody, or melts in light ; Land of the green wood by the silver rill, The heather and the daisy of the hill, The guardian thistle to the foeman stern, The wild rose, hawthorn, and tbe lady fern, Land of the lark, that like a seraph sings, Beyond the rainbow upon quivering wings ; Land of wild beauty, and romantic shapeB, Of sheltered valleys, and of stormy capes, Of the bright garden and the tangled brake Of the dark mountain and the sun-lit lake ; Land of my birth and of my father's grave, Tbe eagle's home, and the eyrie of the brave ! The foot of slave thy heather never stained, Nor rocks, that battlement thy sons profaned ! Unrivalled land of science and of arts ; Land of fair faces and of faithful hearts ; Land where religion paves her heavenward road, Land of the Temple of the Living God ! Yet dear to feeling Scotland as thou art, Should'st thou that glorious temple e'er desert, 17 I would disclaim thee—seek the distant shore Of some fair isle—and then return no more. James Gray, Edinburgh. — "Sabbath Among the Mountains."