Page:The Fall of the Alamo.djvu/98

 Would you not self assign your chief devotion To God, your second to your native land?

That greatly will depend on what you call Your native land. What is this Texas, speak! A dreary waste, a desert territory Of Mexico not worth the name of State, With outlaws filled and refugees from justice, The scum of the depraved society Of the United States. And this you boast Your native land, a penal colony?

Ah! must I hear Great Santa Anna's lips Repeat the thoughtless sentiments of men Who prejudiced, averse to deeper search, Judge inward Nature only from without? I will admit that many desperadoes. Excreted elsewhere through society And law from kind respect and intercourse. Have found a welcome refuge and asylum In sparsely-settled portions of our land, On which their crimes bestow an ill repute. But,—while beneath the prairies' atmosphere. So pure, so temple-like, so God-pervaded, And 'mong their dwellers' patriarchal spirit