“The Ballroom in Bloom” by Castro Alves

Castro Alves was a Brazilian poet and playwright. His abolitionist writing won him the epithet of “O Poeta dos Escravos” (“The Poet of the Slaves”). How lovely the shores of this powerful river, Which flows away frothy, unrivaled, supreme: There in bromeliads, among golden blossoms, Sylphs and fairies establish their…