"But when some wrong, some deed of shame, Shall make that land no more our own-- Ah! hunger for that holy name My country, I have truly known! "The simple plough-boy from his field Looks forth. He sees God's purple wall Encircling him. High over all The vast sun wheels his shining shield. "This King, who makes earth what it is,-- King David bending to his toil! O lord and master of the soil, How envied in thy loyal bliss! "Long live the land we loved in youth,-- That world with blue skies bent about, Where never entered ugly doubt! Long live the simple, homely truth! "Can true hearts love some far snow-land, Some bleak Alaska bought with gold? God's laws are old as love is old; And Home is something near at hand. "Yea, change yon river's course; estrange The seven sweet stars; make hate divide The full moon from the flowing tide,-- But this old truth ye cannot change. "I begged a land as begging bread; I begged of these brave mountaineers To share their sorrows, share their tears; To weep as they wept, with their dead. "They did consent. The mountain town Was mine to love, and valley lands. That night the barefoot monk came down And laid my two bags in my hands! "On! On! And oh the load I bore! Why, once I dreamed my soul was lead; Dreamed once it was a body dead! It made my cold, hard bosom sore. "I dragged that body forth and back-- O conscience, what a baying hound! Nor frozen seas nor frosted ground Can throw this bloodhound from his track. "In farthest Russia I lay down A dying man, at last to rest; I felt such load upon my breast As seamen feel, who sinking drown. "That night, all chill and desperate, I sprang up, for I could not rest; I tore the two bags from my breast, And dashed them in the burning grate. "I then crept back into my bed; I tried, I begged, I prayed to sleep; But those red, restless coins would keep Slow dropping, dropping, and blood red. "I heard them clink and clink and clink,-- They turned, they talked within that grate. They talked of her; they made me think Of one who still must pray and wait. "And when the bags burned crisp and black, Two coins did start, roll to the floor,-- Roll out, roll on, and then roll back, As if they needs must journey more. "Ah, then I knew nor change nor space, Nor all the drowning years that rolled Could hide from me her haunting face, Nor still that red-tongued talking gold. "Again I sprang forth from my bed! I shook as in an ague fit; I clutched that red gold, burning red, I clutched, as if to strangle it. "I clutched it up--you hear me, boy?-- I clutched it up with joyful tears! I clutched it close, with such wild joy I had not felt for years and years!