Song of Exile
after Gonçalves Dias
My land is crowned with palms that proudly rise,
Where sings the thrush beneath the golden skies;
The birds that trill within this foreign air
Sing not as sweet as those that warble there.
Our skies hold stars in brighter, fuller flight,
Our meadows bloom with richer, fairer light;
Our forests teem with life that leaps and plays,
Our life holds love in deeper, kinder ways.
When lone I muse in silent midnight hour,
My soul flies back to that enchanted bower—
To lands where palms their graceful fronds display,
Where sings the thrush his tender-hearted lay.
My native land holds beauties pure and rare,
Such charms I cannot, will not, find elsewhere.
And oft I dream, while far from home I stray,
Of palms that shade the songbird's gentle way.
O may it not by Heaven be decreed,
That I shall die in exile, unfreed—
Nor taste once more those splendors I adore,
Nor see the palms, nor hear that song once more.