 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
151
THE LIBERTY TREE.
[_]
[In Colonial times, when the spirit of Seventy-Six was fast maturing for the issue which tried men's souls, the people of the Southern Colonies were wont, in each community, to select a favorite old oak as the Liberty Tree, where they met in consultation and to in-spirit each other. The Liberty Pole is an unsightly substitute for the noble oak, vigorous in its green, great in column and spreading branches, and venerable with its streaming beard of moss. Most of these trees have disappeared—cut down by the sacrilegious axe. It will be well if the spirit which was fostered beneath their branches shall not disappear also, with that veneration which should have held them sacred to the last.]
Hurrah for the tree!—the old oak tree!
The Liberty Tree of the Colony;
How grandly it stood,
The King of the Wood,
With its bearded moss of a century!
The Liberty Tree of the Colony;
How grandly it stood,
The King of the Wood,
With its bearded moss of a century!
How grand was its growth of a thousand years,
As the nation grows by its hopes and fears,
By the storms that wring,
By the birds that sing,
And feeds on the very strifes it bears:
As the nation grows by its hopes and fears,
By the storms that wring,
By the birds that sing,
And feeds on the very strifes it bears:
Till it grandly spreads with the arms that wave,
For a thousand years o'er a people's grave;
And the race that lives
In the shade it gives,
Grows strong, like itself, the storm to brave.
For a thousand years o'er a people's grave;
And the race that lives
In the shade it gives,
Grows strong, like itself, the storm to brave.
Hurrah for the tree!—the proud old tree!
Where the brave old men of the colony,
When the land was aflame,
Together came,
To brood o'er the toils which should make it free.
Where the brave old men of the colony,
When the land was aflame,
Together came,
To brood o'er the toils which should make it free.
152
And for pious rite, and for godly grace,
And valiant counsel, what holier place
Than the shade of the tree,
Of a century,
The sire so long of so great a race?
And valiant counsel, what holier place
Than the shade of the tree,
Of a century,
The sire so long of so great a race?
Would it speak but now, that brave old oak,
As in Colony days it surely spoke,
Oh, what would it say
To the sons to-day,
Of the shame they bear and the galling yoke?
As in Colony days it surely spoke,
Oh, what would it say
To the sons to-day,
Of the shame they bear and the galling yoke?
Be sacred the valor that guards the tree,
That saw the bright dawn of our liberty;
And under its boughs
Let us make our vows,
To die if it needs for our Liberty Tree!
That saw the bright dawn of our liberty;
And under its boughs
Let us make our vows,
To die if it needs for our Liberty Tree!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |