LET greener lands and bluer skies, <br />If such the wide earth shows, <br />With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, <br />Match us the star and rose; <br />The winds that lift the Georgian's veil, <br />Or wave Circassia's curls, <br />Waft to their shores the sultan's sail,-- <br />Who buys our Yankee girls? <br /> <br />The gay grisette, whose fingers touch <br />Love's thousand chords so well; <br />The dark Italian, loving much, <br />But more than one can tell; <br />And England's fair-haired, blue-eyed dame, <br />Who binds her brow with pearls;-- <br />Ye who have seen them, can they shame <br />Our own sweet Yankee girls? <br /> <br />And what if court or castle vaunt <br />Its children loftier born?-- <br />Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt <br />Beside the golden corn? <br />They ask not for the dainty toil <br />Of ribboned knights and earls, <br />The daughters of the virgin soil, <br />Our freeborn Yankee girls! <br /> <br />By every hill whose stately pines <br />Wave their dark arms above <br />The home where some fair being shines, <br />To warm the wilds with love, <br />From barest rock to bleakest shore <br />Where farthest sail unfurls, <br />That stars and stripes are streaming o'er,-- <br />God bless our Yankee girls!<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/our-yankee-girls/
