Mother England, I am coming, cease your calling for a season,
For the plains of wheat need reaping, and the thrasher's at the door.
All these long years I have loved you, but you cannot call it treason
If I loved my shack of shingles and my little baby more.
Now my family have departed—for the good Lord took them early—
And I turn to thee, O England, as a son that seeks his home.
Now younger folk may plough and plant the plains I love so dearly,
Whose acres stretch too wide for feet that can no longer roam.
If the western skies are bluer and the western snows are whiter,
And the flowers of the prairie-lands are bright and honey-sweet,
'Tis the scent of English primrose makes my weary heart beat lighter
As I count the days that part me from your little cobble street.
For the last time come the reapers (you can hear the knives ring cheery
As they pitch the bearded barley in a thousand tents of gold);
For I see the cliffs of Devon bulking dark beyond the prairie,
And hear the skylarks calling to a heart that's growing old.
When the chaff-piles cease their burning and the frost is closing over
All the barren leagues of stubble that my lonely feet have passed,
I shall spike the door and journey towards the Channel lights of Dover—
That England may receive my dreams and bury them at last!