Classic Poem

Thou hardy Mother of a hardy race,
Cornwall, thy hosts of sons are proud of thee;
Scattered abroad in many a distant place,
Our deep, our stedfast love is true to thee.

We count no skies so fair as those at home;
No cliffs like those that guard the Western shore;
We see again the tossing billows foam,
We see the golden furze about the moor.

We know the valleys sloping to the sea;
The wooded sides about the winding stream;
The dripping mill-wheel with its greenery;
Wet sands aglow with crimson sunset gleam.

As doth the eagle, when her young can fly,
Break up the nest that they may know their power,
And learn to soar into the utmost sky,
And sweep defiant of the storm and shower,

So dost thou seek to make thy children brave:
The engine-house is silent on the hill;
The rubbish-heaps are grass-grown as the grave;
The kibble thrown aside, the chains are still;

And now wherever hide the veins of ore,
There toil thy sons with brain and skilful hands;
From Spain and Africa to Chili's shore
They give the world the wealth of far-off lands.

The lonely dweller 'mid the city's host,
Where no man greets his brother in the way,
Thrills with new life in vision of the coast
Where the wild billows break in showers of spray.

Amid the hard and grasping ways of life
Comes a sweet breath as of some better clime,
A holy spell that calms the fevered strife,
In thought of those who fill that happier time.

Though scattered wide throughout the busy earth,
No matter where the Cornishman may be,
We love and bless the country of our birth;
Our Mother, One and All are proud of Thee.