Speak White

Speak white

It sounds so good when you

Speak of Paradise Lost

And of the gracious and anonymous profile that trembles

In Shakespeare's sonnets

We're an uncultured stammering race

But we are not deaf to the genius of a language

Speak with the accent of Milton and Byron and Shelley and Keats

Speak white

And forgive us our only answer

Being the raucous songs of our ancestors

And the sorrows of Nelligan