Bright was the morning hour when erst we pressed
That sunny hill-top with our stranger feet,
And viewed with joy the rural beauty round,
And the blue waves where earth and heaven meet.

Nearer, the river, with its gentle flow,
Winding in serpent folds its azure way,
And farther, in the orient horizon,
Old ocean sparkling 'neath the orb of day,

Both emblems of the truth we humbly seek:
Here a small streamlet with a sinuous course;
There the broad sea of wisdom infinite,
Where we may bathe when Life shall reach its source.

Round Hill! thy name is all unknown to fame;
Historic pages mention not of thee;
Yet Memory oft shall view thy grassy top,
Crowned with its single, fence-encircled tree.

That tree spoke to my soul of one afar, —
A tree beneath whose shadow lies the dust
Of one endeared to Christians o'er the earth,
Now crowned and sanctified amid the just.

The hopia-tree! which stands alone and far
Where the swift waters of the Salwen flow,
And mingle in the distance with the waves
Whereon the barks of India come and go.

Rivers and oceans in the pictures blend,
Hilltops and lonely trees; but, thanks to God!
That is a tree upon a heathen soil,
This a fair elm in thine own land, O Lord!

Thy land! oh, make it thine yet more and more!
While blood baptizes oft the sacred soil;
And when the shout of " Peace! " shall echo wide,
Let Freedom bloom in beauty 'neath thy smile.

Then on this hilltop of the pilgrim shore
May the bright banner of our country wave,
A token that the storm at last is o'er,
And God's bright rainbow gleams for every slave!