Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/285



Y tale which I have brought is of a time Ere that fair Southern hind was stained with crime, Brought thitherward in reeking ships and cast Like blight upon the coast, or like a blast From angry levin on a fair young tree. That stands thenceforth a piteous sight to see. So lives this land to-day beneath the sun,— A weltering plague-spot, where the hot tears run, And hearts to ashes turn, and souls are dried Like empty kilns where hopes have parched and died. Woe's cloak is round her,—she the fairest shore In all the Southern Ocean o'er and o'er. Poor Cinderella! she must bide her woe, Because an elder sister wills it so.