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, thou my native soil! thou blessed plot

Whose equal all the world affordeth not!

Show me who can so many crystal rills,

Such sweet-clothed valleys or aspiring hills;

Such wood-ground, pastures, quarries, wealthy mines;

Such rocks in whom the diamond fairly shines;

And if the earth can show the like again,

Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men.

year hath first his jocund spring,

Wherein the leaves, to birds' sweet carolling,

Dance with the wind; then sees the summer's day

Perfect the embryon blossom of each spray;

Next cometh autumn, when the threshed sheaf

Loseth his grain, and every tree his leaf;

Lastly, cold winter's rage, with many a storm,

Threats the proud pines which Ida's top adorn,

And makes the sap leave succourless the shoot,

Shrinking to comfort his decaying root.