The men dance to the rhythm of the Samba beat,
Wrappers flailing with wildness to the night’s gusty wind;
Children gathered under the thatched-roof shed beside the giant Iroko tree,
Listening to the words flowing from the wrinkled lips of the wizened old man;
Mothers with babies under their arms, suckling on the milk of life;
Daughters pounding hard with pestles, the new yam from the day’s harvest;
From the short distance, the night grudgingly lit,
With the dim lights from the sombre moon,
And helped with the candlelights peeping through the windows of the village huts,
the town crier strolls with the gait of a drunken buffalo,
clasping in his arms the jug of palmwine from Ogbuefi’s hut;
It was the eve of the Festival of New life,
When the young boys of the village are ushered into adult life;
The moods were cheerful, joy and excitement enveloped the air;
The goats bleating away with abandon, and the fowls clucking away, getting ready for the night keep;
So it was that the night dragged on with merriment, for tomorrow was the Festival of New Life.
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LORHUES 