The following poem, ‘Love of Country’, was written anonymously and printed in Reynolds’s Miscellany on 13 July 1867. It does not celebrate any one country in particular, but is applicable to all people who love their home country. It has been transcribed by Stephen Basdeo.

Dear to the wayworn traveller,

As he passes through foreign lands,

Are the vine-clad hills with their sunny slopes,

And the beach with the golden sands;

And the song of the breeze, in the old oak trees,

And the vale with its lovely flowers;

And the shady glens, and the winding hills,

And the beautiful perfumed bowers.

The clear bright skies of a soft bright clime,

And the mountains’ eternal snows;

And the pure cool lakes, with their waters calm,

And their solemn, deep repose.

The fields where history loved to write,

Its deeds of great renown;

And the homes where good men lived and died,

Where they won Fame’s wreath and crown.

All these he sees, yet deep in his heart,

Is a sacred lonely cell,

Filled with a holy love for a land,

Where his childhood used to dwell;

And a simple leaf from a rugged bush,

From the land which gave him birth,

Is more highly prized by the wanderer,

Than the treasures of all the earth.