Written by
W. E. B. Du Bois |
Of course you have faced the dilemma: it is announced, they all smirk and rise. If they are ultra, they remove their hats and look ecstatic; then they look at you. What shall you do? Noblesse oblige; you cannot be boorish, or ungracious; and too, after all it is your country and you do love its ideals if not all of its realities. Now, then, I have thought of a way out: Arise, gracefully remove your hat, and tilt your head. Then sing as follows, powerfully and with deep unction. They’ll hardly note the little changes and their feelings and your conscience will thus be saved:
My country tis of thee,
Late land of slavery,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my father’s pride
Slept where my mother died,
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring!
My native country thee
Land of the slave set free,
Thy fame I love.
I love thy rocks and rills
And o’er thy hate which chills,
My heart with purpose thrills,
To rise above.
Let laments swell the breeze
And wring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song.
Let laggard tongues awake,
Let all who hear partake,
Let Southern silence quake,
The sound prolong.
Our fathers’ God to thee
Author of Liberty,
To thee we sing
Soon may our land be bright,
With Freedom’s happy light
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.
|
Written by
Victor Hugo |
A MOORISH BALLAD.
("Don Roderique est à la chasse.")
{***., May, 1828.}
Unto the chase Rodrigo's gone,
With neither lance nor buckler;
A baleful light his eyes outshone—
To pity he's no truckler.
He follows not the royal stag,
But, full of fiery hating,
Beside the way one sees him lag,
Impatient at the waiting.
He longs his nephew's blood to spill,
Who 'scaped (the young Mudarra)
That trap he made and laid to kill
The seven sons of Lara.
Along the road—at last, no balk—
A youth looms on a jennet;
He rises like a sparrow-hawk
About to seize a linnet.
"What ho!" "Who calls?" "Art Christian knight,
Or basely born and boorish,
Or yet that thing I still more slight—
The spawn of some dog Moorish?
"I seek the by-born spawn of one
I e'er renounce as brother—
Who chose to make his latest son
Caress a Moor as mother.
"I've sought that cub in every hole,
'Midland, and coast, and islet,
For he's the thief who came and stole
Our sheathless jewelled stilet."
"If you well know the poniard worn
Without edge-dulling cover—
Look on it now—here, plain, upborne!
And further be no rover.
"Tis I—as sure as you're abhorred
Rodrigo—cruel slayer,
'Tis I am Vengeance, and your lord,
Who bids you crouch in prayer!
"I shall not grant the least delay—
Use what you have, defending,
I'll send you on that darksome way
Your victims late were wending.
"And if I wore this, with its crest—
Our seal with gems enwreathing—
In open air—'twas in your breast
To seek its fated sheathing!"
|
Written by
Omar Khayyam |
Keep thyself from drinking wine in the company of a
boorish, violent character, having no mind or self-control,
for such a man knows only how to cause unpleasantness.
For the time, thou wouldst have to undergo the disorder
of his drunkenness, his vociferations, his folly. And the
next day, his prayers for excuse and pardon would come
to weary thy head.
|