O beautiful Guyana

 

O my lovely native land

More dear to me than all the world

Thy sea-washed, sun-kissed strand

Or down upon the borders

Looking out upon the deep

The great Atlantic

Blown into a fury, or asleep.

At morn, at noon – or better

In the crimson sunset’s glow

I love thee, Oh I love thee.

 

 

MY GUYANA ELDORADO

 

My Guyana, Eldorado

Best of all the world to me,

In my heart where’er I wander

Memory enshrineth thee;

All my hopes and aspirations,

All my longings only tie

Everlasting bonds around us

As the fleeting years roll by.

 

My Guyana, time’s unfolding

More and more thy destiny

To redeem in lasting splendour

All the years had lost to thee;

And the dawning of thy glory

O’er the long long night is cast,

O arise, triumphant, glorious,

From the ashes of the past.

 

 

MY NATIVE LAND

 

Oh I care not that others rave over fair lands afar,

Where silvern lakes and placid streams mirror the evening star;

I care not though their wealth be great, their scenery be grand,

For none so fair as can compare with my own native land.

 

Their sylvan vales and rippling brooks may charm me when I roam,

But what of that? No brooks and vales can steal my love of home;

Where I in childhood used to play, and where the old folks rest

Must be to me, where’er I be, the dearest and the best.

 

And though I rove o’er hill and dale and brave old Neptune’s foam,

O’er crags and rocks and mossy dells, I still will turn me home;

For when at length I come to die, I want no gilded tomb,

Just let me rest within thy breast, where thy sweet flowers bloom,

Where thy sweet flowers bloom.

 

 

THE SONG OF GUYANA’S CHILDREN

 

Born in the land of the mighty Roraima,

Land of great rivers and far stretching sea;

So like the mountain, the sea and the river

Great, wide and deep in our lives would we be;

 

Chorus:

 

Onward, upward, may we ever go

Day by day in strength and beauty grow,

Till at length we each of us may show,

What Guyana’s sons and daughters can be.

 

Born in the land of Kaieteur’s shining splendour

Land of the palm tree, the croton and fern,

We would possess all the virtues and graces,

We all the glory of goodness would learn.

 

Born in the land where men sought El Dorado,

Land of the Diamond and bright shining gold,

We would build up by our faith, love and labour,

God’s golden city which never grows old.

 

Thus to the land which to us God has given

May our young lives bring a gift rich and rare,

Thus, as we grow, may the worth of Guyana

Shine with a glory beyond all compare.