Whence comest thou?
Far, far away,
I have chased the shadows of morning gray;
Up through the mists where the stars are shining,
Like the blest, in their homes of light reclining—
Away through the wilds of immensity,
Where man is afar, and where God is nigh,
I have looked at the things which thou shalt see
When the earth-bound spirit is soaring free!

Whence comest thou?
I have wandered far,
Where the graves of the patriot martyrs are:
I have knelt 'mid the leaves of the forest-land—
By the graves of the pilgrim fathers' band;
Within their forests, beneath their trees,
I have breath'd a prayer to the midnight breeze,—
A prayer for a heart like the mighty and free,
Whose lives were a gospel of liberty!

Whence comest thou?
I have wandered free,
With the fearless bark, o'er the cold north sea;
I have swung in the hammock and heard the tale,
And followed the ship through storm and gale,
Till I sunk in the wave where the tempest sweeps,
Then I turned to the home where the mother weeps,—
Where the wife and the orphan sigh and mourn
For the brave and the bold who will ne'er return!

Whence comest thou?
'Neath a tropic sky,
I have laid me down a sweet streamlet nigh;
And that sunny land was so sweet and fair,
That I longed to recline forever there;
But man came near; and his soul was dark,
God's image defiled with the tyrant's mark:—
The sterile land is the land for me,
If man is mighty and thought to be free!