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Home  »  A Library of American Literature  »  The Land of Dreams

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Land of Dreams

By Samuel Eleazer Mann (1853–1918)

[Born in Methuen, Mass., 1853. Died in Pelham, N. H., 1918.]

I WANDERED in a pleasant land of dreams,

Through fragrant fields, where harvests rich were laid

In golden swaths, by reaper’s swinging blade;

I lingered on the banks of gurgling streams,

Where, through its leafy gates, the sunlight gleams,

And glimmers, through interstices of shade;

There every dewdrop is a gem displayed

Upon the brow of Beauty. Ah! this seems

Her home. Oh would that I could understand

Her speech, for now her voice most sweet I hear,

And now her touch, as from a mother’s hand,

I feel, and wake. ’Tis mother standing near;

And lo, the land of vision doth appear.

Behold! It is “My own, my native land.”

1888.