His Country

[He travels southward, and looks around;]     I journeyed from my native spot      Across the south sea shine,     And found that people in hall and cot     Laboured and suffered each his lot      Even as I did mine.     [and cannot discern the boundary]     Thus noting them in meads and marts      It did not seem to me     That my dear country with its hearts,     Minds, yearnings, worse and better parts      Had ended with the sea.     [of his native country;]     I further and further went anon,      As such I still surveyed,     And further yet - yea, on and on,     And all the men I looked upon      Had heart-strings fellow-made.     [or where his duties to his fellow-creatures end;]     I traced the whole terrestrial round,      Homing the other side;     Then said I, "What is there to bound     My denizenship? It seems I have found      Its scope to be world-wide."     [nor who are his enemies]     I asked me: "Whom have I to fight,      And whom have I to dare,     And whom to weaken, crush, and blight?     My country seems to have kept in sight      On my way everywhere."     1913.