THE BANISHED MAN, ON A DISTANT VIEW OF HIS COUNTRY, WHICH HE IS QUITTING FOR EVER. Joanna Baillie Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. Fugitive Verses. By Joanna Baillie, author of “Dramas on the Passions,“ etc. London Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL. 1840 pp. 131-134.

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THE BANISHED MAN , ON A DISTANT VIEW OF HIS COUNTRY , WHICH HE IS QUITTING FOR EVER . DEAR distant land , whose mountains blue Still bound this wild and watery view , — Dear distant land , where fate has thrown All that my heart delights to own ! Blest be yon gleam of partial light , Which gives thee to my parting sight ! Those well-known cliffs , whose shadows throw Soft coolness o'er the beech below , Where I so oft , a happy child , Picking or shell or weed , beguiled Light reckless hours , that passed away , Like night-sparks on the briny spray , — Dear pleasant shore , thy sandy bed , These feet unblessed no more shall tread ! Still thy rich vales with autumn's store , And cheerful hamlets mottled o'er ; Thy up-land peaks whose stately forms Are mantled oft in gathering storms ; Thy blue streams widening on their way , Thy broad lakes gleaming to the day ; Thy smoking towns , whose towers of war And dusky spires are seen afar , Thy children's boastful pride will raise , And fix the admiring stranger's gaze , — But now , for ever lost to me , These eyes unblest no more shall see . Thy wild pipe , touched with rustic hands , Thy reapers' song from merry bands ; Thy boatman's call and dashing oar , Thy falling torrent's deaf'ning roar ; Thy busy city's humming sound , With all its sweet bells chiming round , Far , on a strange and cheerless shore , These ears unblest shall hear no more . Happy is he , beyond all gain , Who holds in thee his free domain , And roves with careless feet at will O'er his paternal mead and hill , And stores the fruit his harvests yield From his own orchard and his field ! Happy is he who leads at dawn His harnessed steers across thy lawn ! Yea , happy he , bent down with toil , Whose glistening brow bedews thy soil ! How gently heaves the evening sea , As all things homeward tend to thee ! Borne lightly on the gentle gale , Now homeward points each little sail ! Far , screaming from their airy height , The sea-fowl homeward take their flight ; The floating plank and spreading weed , Upon the setting current speed ; The light cloud passes on the wind , While I alone am left behind . Ah , woe is me ! where shall I stray , And whither bend my reckless way ? A waste of world before me lies , But in the thought my spirit dies . There is no home nor joy for me , My native land , removed from thee . For me the sun of heaven doth shine Upon no hills , no plains but thine ; For me the voice of kindness sounds Only within thy cheerful bounds . Rise , surgy deep , ye wild winds blow And whelm my bark these waves below ! Then bear me to my native land : A breathless corse upon her strand , Some hand , in pity of the dead , Will lay her greensward on my head , And there for ever let me rest , As sleeps the froward child , stilled on his mother's breast .