 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
113
WE'VE SUNG AND WE'VE DANCED.
I.
We've sung, and we've danced, while the hostile powerStole subtly upon our noon-day rest,
Nor knew that he waited the dreaming hour,
To leap in his rage on his victim's breast!
We wake; and have found
Our free limbs bound,
And the foe of his feeble prey possess'd!
Oh! the shame of that waking—the sorrow!
The grief, and the guilt, and the horror!
But yesterday free—what, To-morrow
Shall tell our children the rest?
II.
What hope for the race, when such is the story,Told of the nation a thousand years?
The peasant strides on, in a progress to glory,
And his valor, the State in the forest uprears.
But his sons grow base,
And the coward race
Yield their necks as the braver foe appears!
And we can but weep o'er the pages
That tell of the ruins of ages;
Deeds of Men, songs of Bards, thoughts of Sages,
All vain, 'gainst the shame and disgrace!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |