Southern Rising

Sterquilinium

Where some see lost memosa trees
replaced by rows of bradford pears
and countless yankee restaurants
and yankee homes and yankee airs
those same declare: the South is dead
this South never to rise again
for how could Southern pride revive
where yankee emptiness has been?

But strange, as if the soil's a sun
whose rays, unseen, but still in force
do penetrate the yankee heart
and though are stained, yet fend off worse
Thus yankees, in their locust clouds
pave everything from field to fen
become, within a dozen years
akin to Southern Gentlemen

And so the brashest brooklyn cad
you plant beside Fort Loudon's shore
becomes somewhat acceptable:
civilized, if still a boor
His children, bred in Southern skies
Unlike their father, show it when
without hope of recompense
they open doors for fellow men