Long I have sighed for my home in the mountain
Far have I wandered & sadly I've wept
For the land of the stream & the sweet-singing fountain
The land which the torrent for ages has swept

Back to the rock with its bosom of snow
Back to the wild rushing river I come
Still may its waters in melody flow
With moan & with murmur, with ripple & hum

List to the voice of the far tempest yelling
Darkly it broods o'er that white icy hill
Yet its dread music is deepning & swelling
Sounds the loud wind-blast more hollow & shrill

Stern is the welcome & haughty & high
Which greets my return to the land of my birth
Thunder peals speak from the heart of the sky
Pine Forests bow to the storm-smitten earth

Yet to my spirit more sweet is the sound
Than the music which floats over vine-covered France
When the soft winds of twilight sigh soothingly round
When stars in the firmament tremble & glance

And fairer those snowy peaks flash on my sight
Beneath the black veil of that wild heaven above
Than Italy's sky ever cloudless and bright
than the sun which shines over that region of love

There stands the hut where my first breath I drew
Perched like the nest of an eaglet on high
Under that lone roof in childhood I grew
And now I return neath it's shelter to die