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Queen Berengaria's Courtesy, and Other Poems

By the Lady E. Stuart Wortley. In Three Vols

collapse sectionI, II, III. 
  
  
  
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THE SAVOYARDS.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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105

THE SAVOYARDS.

From Savoy's soil they trooping come
Her children in wild bands,
With their marmozets and mandolins,
To dwell in Stranger-Lands—
Aye! the little mountaineers, they leave
Their native mountain air,
To choak in crowded cities close,
And to pine their lives out there.
Were it not better to lie down
In cabins low but free,
Beneath the verdurous shelter broad,
Of their own old household tree,
To toil with an unresting foot
And an unpausing hand,
To labour e'en a thousand fold,
And to dwell in their own Land!

106

To look up with a trustful eye
From their ancestorial sod,
And to draw strength from the very Earth
Which their dead Forefathers trod,
And from the Sky and from the Air
Of their Native Country's place.
To wring high gifts of courage keen,
And to guard their kindred race.
But these things seem they not to heed,
Bent on beggarly poor gain,
And they bid Adieu to Savoy's Hills,
That tower o'er flood and plain,
With their mandolins and their marmozets,
And their tristfully trolled tunes,
To wander through the Stranger's streets,
And to ask the Stranger's boons!
Oh! ye youthful Sons of England!—
Ne'er shall such become your lot

107

Till the noble pride of Englishmen
And their very name's forgot;
There is sure a Virtue in the Soil,
And a Talisman in the Air,
The happy Sons of England's homes,
From such base doom to spare!
Oh! what would Britain's offspring bear
Of hardship and of toil,
Rather than quit their Fatherland,
The sweet—the sacred Soil—
Ten thousand thousand chain-like ties
Still, still detain them there,
Where could ye find another home,
Sons of our England—where?
The Altars of your Religion's Truth,
The thresholds of your love—
The very Soil beneath your feet,
The very Skies above—

108

Hold you with more than magic power,
Forbidding ye to roam,
The Air—the Ground—the Sky—the Clime—
All these are as your home!
Without the patriot-spirit proud,
To enrich and to secure,
The mountain-fortresses are weak,
The generous Soil is poor—
The Patriot-spirit never fails,
And, Oh! it wearieth not,
'T would make the desert wilderness
A glad and blooming spot.
Back—back—ye little wandering tribes,
Back to your mountain-lands,
If love makes strong your filial hearts,
Your hearts will nerve your hands—
The rockiest soil will surely yield
Fair produce—Plenty's stores—
When works the labourer with fond zeal
On the Earth that he adores!