Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/232

214 I love them for the living, The generous, kind, and gay; And for the dead who slumber Within their breasts of clay. I love them for the bounty, Which cheers the social hearth; I love them for their rosy girls The fairest on the earth! The red old hills of Georgia! Oh! where, upon the face Of earth, is freedom s spirit More bright in any race? In Switzerland and Scotland Each patriot breast it fills, But oh! it blazes brighter yet Among our Georgia hills! And where, upon their surface, Is heart to feeling dead? Oh! when has needy stranger Gone from those hills unfed? There bravery and kindness, For aye, go hand in hand, Upon your washed and naked hills,

"My own, my native land!" The red old hills of Georgia I never can forget; Amid life s joys and sorrows, My heart is on them yet;