Читать книгу Roughing It in the Bush - Susanna Moodie - Страница 10

Oh! can you leave your native land

An exile's bride to be;

Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth,

To tempt the main with me;

Across the wide and stormy sea

To trace our foaming track,

And know the wave that heaves us on

Will never bear us back?

And can you in Canadian woods

With me the harvest bind,

Nor feel one lingering, sad regret

For all you leave behind?

Can those dear hands, unused to toil,

The woodman's wants supply,

Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast

When wintry storms are nigh?

Amid the shades of forests dark,

Our loved isle will appear

An Eden, whose delicious bloom

Will make the wild more drear.

And you in solitude will weep

O'er scenes beloved in vain,

And pine away your life to view

Once more your native plain.

Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips

Your wanderer's fate decide;

My spirit spurns the selfish wish—

You must not be my bride.

But oh, that smile—those tearful eyes,

My firmer purpose move—

Our hearts are one, and we will dare

All perils thus to love!

(This song has been set to a beautiful plaintive air, by my husband.)