Oh! Can You Leave Your Native Land?

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h3> OH! CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND? </h3> <p>A Canadian Song</p> <p> Oh! can you leave your native land<br/> An exile's bride to be;<br/> Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth,<br/> To tempt the main with me;<br/> Across the wide and stormy sea<br/> To trace our foaming track,<br/> And know the wave that heaves us on<br/> Will never bear us back?<br/> <br/> And can you in Canadian woods<br/> With me the harvest bind,<br/> Nor feel one lingering, sad regret<br/> For all you leave behind?<br/> Can those dear hands, unused to toil,<br/> The woodman's wants supply,<br/> Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast<br/> When wintry storms are nigh?<br/> <br/> Amid the shades of forests dark,<br/> Our loved isle will appear<br/> An Eden, whose delicious bloom<br/> Will make the wild more drear.<br/> And you in solitude will weep<br/> O'er scenes beloved in vain,<br/> And pine away your life to view<br/> Once more your native plain.<br/> <br/> Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips<br/> Your wanderer's fate decide;<br/> My spirit spurns the selfish wish&mdash;<br/> You must not be my bride.<br/> But oh, that smile&mdash;those tearful eyes,<br/> My firmer purpose move&mdash;<br/> Our hearts are one, and we will dare<br/> All perils thus to love!<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />