Grow old along with me:
The best is yet to be!
1
A reed in hand, she comes
Harping a decree of the ancients
Weeping for joy of the prospects
Of our ancestral sceptres:
Swords forged for peace and liberty!
2
Measure this peace of peoples
Sing in the heights of future wars
The shrubs shrug for the cedars
To be cut in the contempt of peace
Prowl in the secrets of sad glories!
3
Freedom is the very word,
A word to be heard in prophesies!
Is she deceiving the celebrate folks?
In markets: mere fools, sad
Tho’ the gods demand the sacrifices!
4
The voices were heard
Far from the Niger’s shores;
O the lagoons quartered the talks
The discourse that could
Determine the flow of Niger’s tears!
5
A white angel blew the trumpet
Humming a foreign dance-style
A native dancer lept into the sky
Calling his neighbours to the stake
Of powers, of shy cry and mourning!
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