Charlotte Wilson Archive
Written: 1887.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
(Tune: "Andreas Refer.")
O high rocks looking heavenward,
O valleys green and fair,
Sea-cliffs that seem to gird and guard
Our Island --- once so dear!
In vain your beauty now ye spread,
For we are numbered with the dead:
A robber band has seized the land,
And we are exiles here.
The moonlight glides along the shore
And silvers all the sands,
It gleams on halls and castles hoar
Built by our father's hands.
But from the scene its beauty fades,
The light dies out along the glades:
A robber band has seized the land,
And we are exiles here.
The plowman plows, the sower sow;
The reaper reaps the ear,
The woodman to the forest goes
Before the day grows clear;
But of our toil no fruit we see,
The harvest's not for you and me:
A robber band has seized the land
And we are exiles here.
The cattle in the sun may lie,
The fox by night may roam,
The lark may sing all day on high
Between its heaven and home;
But we have no place here, to die
Is the one right we need not buy:
Then high to heaven our vows be given,
We'll have our land or die.