Classic Poem

Almond-eyed Jacqueline beckoned to me,
As our troop rode home from mounting guard,
And I saw Gil Perez's brow grow dark,
While his face seemed longer by half a yard.
What care I for the Spaniard's ire,
His haughty lip and glance of fire;
What so fit for these Southern lords
As the tempered edges of freemen's swords?

Say, shall an Alva's merciless bands
Their hands in our noblest blood imbrue,
And then with accursed foreign wiles,
Our gentle Northern girls pursue?
Hail to him who for freedom strikes!
Up with your banners and down with the dykes!
Better be whelmed 'neath ocean waves
Than live like cowards the lives of slaves.

Haughty Gil Perez may then beware,
For we love our blue-eyed Leyden girls,
And would welcome the shock of Toledo blades
Were the prize but a lock of their golden curls.
Hope on, brothers, the day shall come
With flaunting of banner and rolling of drum,
When William the Silent shall rally his men
And scourge these wolves to their homes again.