Page:Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 14 1825.pdf/10



"They bid me sing of Thee, mine own, my sunny land! of Thee! Am I not parted from thy shores by the mournful sounding sea? Doth not thy shadow wrap my soul?—In silence let me die, In a voiceless dream of thy silvery founts, and thy pure deep sapphire sky! How should thy lyre give here its wealth of buried sweetness forth? Its tones, of summer's breathings born, to the wild winds of the North?

"Yet thus it shall be once, once more! my spirit shall awake, And through the mists of death break out, my Country! for thy sake! That I may make thee known, with all the glory and the light, And the beauty never more to bless thy daughter's yearning sight! Thy woods shall whisper in my song, thy bright streams warble by, Thy soul flow o'er my lips again—yet once, my Sicily!