song of the south

Oh, would that I had been born in the South,
Land my longing heart calls home.
Fate then, perhaps wouldn't lead me about,
A stranger through foreign fields to roam.

For dreary are the fields of the city,
Where man endeavors to build a lifeless cage
'round Nature, to tame and bind her—she holds no pity,
and rends those feeble prison walls in rage.

Take the shrill of the streets and crowding skyscrapers,
Give me the song of crickets and trees five stories high.
Rose of magnolia and cypress, silently mourning in wait for
The summer that will bloom bye and bye.

To see the unseen, to hear the unheard,
To speak what is ineffable. . .
Fate, carry me south, where my every word
Might be sung in sweet, wild honey lilt affable.