A price thy nation never gave Shall yet be paid for thee; For thou shalt be the Christian's slave, In lands beyond the sea." Then wept the warrior chief and bade To shred his locks away; And one by one, each heavy braid Before the victor lay. Thick were the platted locks, and long, And closely hidden there Shone many a wedge of gold among 66 The dark and crisped hair. Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold Long kept for sorest need : Take it thou askest sums untold, And say that I am freed. Take it my wife, the long, long day, Weeps by the cocoa-tree, And my young children leave their play, 66 And ask in vain for me." I take thy gold—but I have made And ween that by the cocoa shade His heart was broken-crazed his brain : He struggled fiercely with his chain, Yet wore not long those fatal bands They drew him forth upon the sands, SPRING IN TOWN. THE Country ever has a lagging Spring, Waiting for May to call its violets forth, And June its roses-showers and sunshine bring, Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth; To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, And one by one the singing-birds come back. Within the city's bounds the time of flowers Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day, Such as full often, for a few bright hours, Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May, Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom-. And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom. For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June, That overhung with blossoms, through its glen, Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon, And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours. For here are eyes that shame the violet, And thick about those lovely temples lie Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled, Thrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy, And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world; Who curls of every glossy color keepest, And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest. And well thou mayst-for Italy's brown maids Send the dark locks with which their brows are dressed, And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids, Then, henceforth, let no maid or matron grieve, Such piles of curls as nature never knew. |