Hugh Peters
HUGH PETERS was born in Hebron, Conn., in 1807, and being educated for the law, came to Cincinnati to practice, and was drowned in the Ohio river at the early age of twenty-four years, it was supposed by suicide. He was a young man of high moral qualities, the finest promise as a writer of both prose and verse, and was greatly lamented. One of his poems, “My Native Land,” is one of the best of its character. We annex a few of its patriotic verses. It was written while sailing from the shore of his native State, Connecticut, at the moment when it had shrunk in his vision to one “blue line between the sky and sea,”
MY NATIVE LAND.The boat swims from the pebbled shore,And proudly drives her prow;The crested waves roll up before:Yon dark gray land, my native land,Thou land of rock and pine.I’m speeding from thy golden sand;But can I wave a farewell hadTo such a shore as thine?But now you’ve shrunk to yon blue lineBetween the sky and sea,I feel, sweet home, that thou art mine,I feel my bosom cling to thee.I see thee blended with the waveAs children see the earthClose up a sainted mother’s graveThey weep for her they cannot save,And feel her holy worth.And I have left thee, home, alone,A pilgrim from thy shore;.But now you’ve shrunk to yon blue lineThe wind goes by with hollow moan,1 hear it sigh a warning tone,“Ye see your home no more.”I’m cast upon the world’s wide sea,Torn like an ocean weed:I’m east away, far, far from thee,I feel a thing I cannot be,A bruised and broken reed.Farewell, my native land, farewell!That wave has hid thee now—My heart is bowed as with a spell.This rending pang!—would I could tellWhat ails my throbbing brow!One look upon that fading streakWhich bounds yon eastern sky:One tear to cool my burning cheek;And then a word I cannot speak— My Native Land—Good-bye.
From Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe; Pub. 1888