Beware, Base Albion!
By JOAQUIN MILLER.
Beware, base Albion, beware!
"Perfidious Albion" of old
Her name; her fame, or foul or fair,
To get and get and hold and hold;
To get and get, or land or gold,
Wherever she could cast a snare
About the weak, before the old—
Beware, false Albion, beware.
Here by our swift, sweet Oregon
She bullied, bribed, she begged, she lied!
She laid her lion's paw upon
Our Pioneers till they defied
Her to her teeth. Just as the Boer
Today defies and bravely dies
As died the Spartan band of yore
For all that fearless freemen prize.
Beware, cursed Albion, beware!
Her cunning trade is still the same;
To get and get; or how or where;
Enslave and rob in freedom's name!
Beware her friendship! Better far
Her hate. We dared, we still can dare
Her hate, her hate in peace or war.
But ah, her friendship! that beware.
The Heights, November, 1899.
