The toil-worn peasant looked with eager eyes
O'er the blue waters, to those distant skies;
Where no one groaned 'neath unrequited toil,
Where the strong laborer might own the soil
On which he stood; and, in his manhood's strength,
Smile to behold his growing fields at length;--
Where his brave sons might easily obtain
The lore for which their father sighed in vain,
And, in a few short seasons, take their stand
Among the learned and gifted of the land,
Could ocean-barriers avail to keep
That yearning heart in lands beyond the deep?
No!--the sweet vision of a home--his own,
Haunted his days of toil, his midnights lone;
Till, gath'ring up his little earthly store,
Boldly he sought this far-off Western shore,
In a few years to realize far more
Than in his wildest dreams he hoped before.
We cannot boast those skies of milder ray,
'Neath which the orange mellows day by day,
Where the Magnolia spreads its snowy flowers,
And Nature revels in perennial bowers,--
Here, Winter holds his long and solemn reign,
And madly sweeps the desolated plain,--
But Health and Vigor hail the wintry strife,
With all the buoyant glow of happy life,
And, by the blazing chimney's cheerful hearth,
Smile at the blast 'mid songs and household mirth.
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