Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
My Fatherland (II.)William Cranston Lawton (18531941)
T
Brothers, and kinsmen, hail his late return?
Or did he, doubly exiled, only yearn
To greet the Euxine’s waves at Trebizond,
The blue Ægean, and Pallas’ towers beyond?
Mute is the record: we shall never learn.
But when once more the well-worn page I turn,
Forever by reluctant schoolboys conned,
Of blacker waters in a drearier vale.
Ah me! when on that brink we exiles stand,
As earthly lights and mortal accents fail,
Shall voices long-forgotten reach our ears
To tell us we have found our fatherland?