When death shall come, O let me die,
Where these wild steeps around me rise;
Where the green slopes and valleys lie
Beneath these bright, blue mountain skies.

For this is my dear native home;
This low-roofed dwelling once was ours,
This orchard bright with scented bloom,
These pastures gay with vernal flowers.

Here when the land was rent with strife,
And on the coast the war cloud hung,
These veins first felt the pulse of life,
These lips first lisped the English tongue.

Brothers and sisters nestled here
Beneath the kind parental sway;
And here through many a passing year
Love, peace and joy were round my way.

Now three score years of life are past,
The hair is silvered on my brow;
And shadows o'er my way are cast—
Life's evening shadows even now.

What though beneath a milder sky,
Broad fields of waving wheat were mine—
And tasseled maize and bearded rye,
And steeds and flocks and herds of kine.

Or what if mine were princely state,
And lofty towers and airy halls;
Or marble pile with moated gate,
And gilded dome and pictured walls.

These could not compensate the heart,
For childhood's haunts and home of rest;
No solace to the soul impart,
To fill the void within my breast.

For still my spirit fondly clings
To these loved hills, though wild and stern;
And every passing season brings
A deeper yearning to return.

And when life's few brief years are gone,
I would my dim and fading eye,
Might cast a loving look upon
My native home, my native sky.