Classic Poem

'Tis said, in old Granada,
Then held in captive bands,
Enslaved in their own city,
Held down by foreign hands,

When once, in accents plaintive,
The old songs rose in air,
The people from their houses
Rushed out in mad despair.

The songs brought back the freedom
Once theirs in days of yore,—
A freedom only sleeping,
Though now enjoyed no more.

Then passed a law these tyrants,
Who feared a singer's breath,
That none might sing forever
That song, on pain of death,

So human souls, fast fettered
By custom old and creed,
Are only drugged and sleeping,
And waiting to be freed;

And, when the song of freedom
Some bold voice grandly sings,
They feel within them stirring
Their long unuséd wings.

A far-off recollection
Of birth-rights lost arise,
Of that diviner sonship
Which links them with the skies.

So, lest the priesthood totter,
And souls their freedom gain,
This song divine's forbidden,
On threat of endless pain.