ANOMOLOUS

I soooo do not do poetry, but I came across this in Rockwell Kent's autobiography This is my own, which is a wonderful book and has a lot about AuSable Forks in it--it's Sir Walter Scott:


"THIS IS MY OWN, MY NATIVE LAND"

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, centred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.


How lucky am I to have a native land, "my own," where I live?