Quote#Death
Hail to the land whereon we tread
Quote byJames Gates Percival · 1795–1856
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: New England, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)..
English (original)
Hail to the land whereon we tread, Our fondest boast! The sepulchres of mighty dead, The truest hearts that ever bled, Who sleep on glory’s brightest bed, A fearless host: No slave is here:—our unchained feet, Walk freely as the waves that beat Our coast.
— James Gates Percival
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Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre--green sods Are all their monument, and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles Or the eternal pyramids.
On thy fair bosom, silver lake, The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, And round his breast the ripples break As down he bears before the gale.
The water is calm and still below, For the winds and waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air.
But see! the pains begin to fly; Tho’ Venus bled she could not die: See the new phœnix point her eyes, And lovelier from her ashes rise.
Brighter from her disease she shines, As fire the precious gold refines. Thus when the silent grave becomes Pregnant with life as fruitful wombs; When the wide seas and spacious earth Resign us to our second birth;
'Tis the night—the night Of the grave's delight, And the warlocks are at their play! Ye think that without, The wild winds shout, But no, it is they—it is they!
