HEATHER LAYS. 



The Faded Heather 



It is recorded of the Highland emigrants to 

 Canada that they wept because the Heather would not 

 grow in their newly adopted soil. 



There may be some too brave to weep 



O'er poverty or care or wrong 

 Within whose manly bosoms sleep 



Emotions gentle, warm and strong; 

 Which wait the wakening of a tone, 



Unmarked, unthought of by the crowd, 

 And seeming unto them alone 



A voice both eloquent and loud ; 

 And then the feelings, hid for years, 

 Burst forth at length in burning tears. 



He wept, that hardy mountaineer, 



When faded thus his loved heath flower. 

 Yet 'mid the ills of life, no tear 



Had wet his cheek until that hour; 

 You might have deemed the mountain tree 



Had sooner shrunk before the blast, 

 Or that his native rock should be 



Bent by the winds which hurried past, 

 Rather than he a tear should shed 

 Because a wild flower drooped its head. 



It would not grow the heather flower 

 Far from its native land exiled, 



Though breezes from the forest bower 

 Greeted the lonely mountain child. 

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