Say, that his last fond blessing yet
Rests on my soul like dew,
And by its hallowing might I trust

Once more his face to view.

And tell our gentle mother,

That on her grave I pour
The sorrows of my spirit forth,
As on her breast of yore.

Happy thou art that soon, how soon.
Our good and bright will see!
O brother, brother! may I dwell,
Ere long, with them and thee!

THE RETURN.

"HAST thou come with the heart of thy childhood back?

The free, the pure, the kind?"

-So murmur'd the trees in my homeward track,

As they play'd to the mountain-wind.

"Hath thy soul been true to its early love?"

Whisper'd my native streams;

"Hath the spirit, nursed amidst hill and grove,

Still revered its first high dreams?

"Hast thou borne in thy bosom the holy prayer

Of the child in his parent-halls?"

Thus breath'd a voice on the thrilling air,

From the old ancestral walls.

"Hast thou kept thy faith with the faithful dead,

Whose place of rest is nigh?

With the father's blessing o'er thee shed,

With the mother's trusting eye?"

Then my tears gush'd forth in sudden rain,
As I answer'd-"O ye shades!

I bring not my childhood's heart again.
To the freedom of your glades.

"I have turn'd from my first pure love aside,

O bright and happy streams!

Light after light, in my soul have died

The day-spring's glorious dreams.

"And the holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass'd→

The prayer at my mother's knee;

Darken'd and troubled I come at last,

Home of my boyish glee!

"But I bear from my childhood a gift of tears,

To soften and atone;

And O ye scenes of those bless'd years,

They shall make me again your own."

FOR the strength of the hills we bless thee,

Our God, our fathers' God!

Thou hast made thy children mighty,

By the touch of the mountain-sod.

Thou hast fix'd our ark of refuge
Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod.
For the strength of the hills we bless Thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

We are watchers of a beacon

Whose light must never die; We are guardians of an altar

'Midst the silence of the sky: The rocks yield founts of courage, Struck forth as by Thy rod.

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

For the dark resounding caverns,

Where Thy still small voice is heard;

For the strong pines of the forest,
That by Thy breath are stirr'd;

For the storms, on whose free pinions
Thy Spirit walks abroad;

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

The royal eagle darteth

On his quarry from the heights,

And the stag that knows no master

Seeks there his wild delights;

But we for Thy communion

Have sought the mountain-sod.

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee,

Our God, our fathers' God!