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IN THE HOUSE OF THE AYLORS.
Where Summer crowns with orange bloomsThe land of pines and cypress glooms; We wander forth by field and lane, In woody shades with plaintive strain. Ye lonely bayous catch the sound! Ye languid fen-brakes pass it round; Ye pensive hills your silence break, And let the mournful echo wake! Of errant Pride's chivalric deeds, Of frowning Caste's unholy creeds, And their worse, sin-begotten heir, Black Slavery, a lay I bring, And of her painted crimes dare sing.
When Satan, hurled down from the skies, O'er this terrene his fallen eyes In search of ruin hotly cast, Hell-bound, but harm-bent to the last; Those shores of ours, where Mexic's Sea Holds watch with the Atlantic, he Touched not in his tremendous flight; For, stooping there, the sons of light He spied encamped in battle form Around a captive ocean storm,