Alfred Austin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Austin

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A Poem – To England[edit]To England

(Written in Mid-Channel.)

Now upon English soil I soon shall stand,

Homeward from climes that fancy deems more fair;

And well I know that there will greet me there

No soft foam fawning upon smiling strand,

No scent of orange-groves, no zephyrs bland;

But Amazonian March, with breast half bare

And sleety arrows whistling through the air,

Will be my welcome from that burly land.

Yet he who boasts his birth-place yonder lies

Owns in his heart a mood akin to scorn

For sensuous slopes that bask 'neath Southern skies,

Teeming with wine and prodigal of corn,

And, gazing through the mist with misty eyes,

Blesses the brave bleak land where he was born.

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