Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
My Fatherland (I.)William Cranston Lawton (18531941)
An Incident of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand
T
Before the walls of golden Babylon.
The host who deemed that priceless treasure won
For many a day since then had wandered wide,
By famine thinned, by savage hordes defied.
In a deep vale, beneath the setting sun,
They saw at last a swift black river run,
While shouting spearsmen thronged the farther side.
Toward the despondent chief a soldier flew:
“I was a slave in Athens: never knew
My native country: but I understand
The meaning of yon wild barbarian cries,
And I believe this is my fatherland!”