Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79. | | | | St. Malo | | Reminiscences | | François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) |
| | Translated by John Oxenford
MY childhood’s home, that pleasant spot | |
| By me can never be forgot! | |
| How happy, sister, then appeared | |
| Our country’s lot, | |
| O France! to me be still endeared, | 5 |
| Be still revered. | |
| |
| Our mother’s form remember’st thou? | |
| I see her by the chimney now, | |
| Where oft she clasped us to her breast, | |
| While on her brow | 10 |
| Our lips the white locks fondly pressed; | |
| Then were we blessed! | |
| |
| And, sister, thou remember’st yet | |
| The castle, which the stream would wet; | |
| And that strange Moorish tower, so old, | 15 |
| Thou ’lt not forget; | |
| How from its bell the deep sound rolled, | |
| And day foretold. | |
| |
| Remember’st thou the lake’s calm blue? | |
| The swallow brushed it as he flew,— | 20 |
| How with the reeds the breezes played; | |
| The evening hue | |
| With which the waters bright were made | |
| In gold arrayed. | |
| |
| One image more,—of all the best,— | 25 |
| The maid whom to my heart I pressed | |
| As, youthful lovers, we would stray, | |
| In moments blest, | |
| About the wood for wild-flowers gay,— | |
| Past, past away! | 30 |
| |
| O, give my Helen back to me,— | |
| My mountain and my old oak-tree; | |
| I mourn their loss, I feel how drear | |
| My life must be; | |
| But, France! to me thou wilt appear | 35 |
| Forever dear. | | | | |
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