A plant I am, that scarcely grown,

Was torn from out its Eastern bed,

Where all around perfume is shed,

And life but as a dream is known;

The land that I can call my own,

By me forgotten ne’er to be,

Where trilling birds their song taught me,

And cascades with their ceaseless roar,

And all along the spreading shore

The murmurs of the sounding sea.

While yet in childhood’s happy day,

I learned upon its sun to smile,

And in my breast there seemed the while

Seething volcanic fires to play;

A bard I was, and my wish alway

To call upon the fleeting wind,

With all the force of verse and mind:

“Go forth, and spread around its fame,

From zone to zone with glad acclaim,

And earth to heaven together bind!”