The West Indies, and Other Poems

Front matter

THE WEST INDIES, AND OTHER POEMS.

THE

WEST INDIES

The West Indies

THE

WEST INDIES.

A POEM, IN FOUR PARTS.

WRITTEN IN HONOUR OF THE ABOLITION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE BY THE BRITISH LEGISLATURE, IN 1807.

Receive him for ever; not now as a servant, but above a servant,—a brother beloved."

St Paul's Epist. to Philemon, v. 15, 16.

AuxTOC|title=Parts.|

Part I.

THE

WEST INDIES.

PART I.

ARGUMENT.

Introduction; on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,—The Mariner's Compass,—Columbus.—The Discovery of America.—The West Indian Islands,—The Charibs,—Their Extermination.

'Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free!' Thus saith the island-empress of the sea; Thus saith Britannia.—O, ye winds and waves! Waft the glad tidings to the land of slaves; Proclaim on Guinea's coast, by Gambia' side, And as far as Niger rolls his eastern tide,1

Through radiant realms, beneath the burning zone, Where Europe's curse is felt, her name unknown, 'Thus saith Britannia, empress of the sea, 'Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free!'

Long lay the ocean-paths from man concealed; Light came from heaven,—the magnet was reveal'd, A surer star to guide the seaman's eye Than the pale glory of the northern sky; Alike ordain'd to shine by night and day, Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray; Where'er the mountains rise, the billows roll. Still with strong impulse turning to the pole, True as the sun is to the morning true. Though light as film, and trembling as the dew.

Then man no longer plied with timid oar, And failing heart, along the windward shore; Broad to the sky he turn'd his fearless sail, Defied the adverse, woo'd the favouring gale,

Bared to the storm his adamantine breast, Or soft on ocean's lap lay down to rest; While free as clouds the liquid ether sweep, His white-wing'd vessels coursed the unbounded deep; From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam, The waves his heritage, the world his home.

Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land; The floods o'erbalanced:—where the tide of light. Day after day, roll'd down the gulph of night, There seem'd one waste of waters:—long in vain His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main; When sudden, as creation burst from nought. Sprang a new world through his stupendous thought, Light, order, beauty!—While his mind explored The unveiling mystery, his heart adored; Where'er sublime imagination trod, He heard the voice, he saw the face of God.

Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye O'er the wide ocean stretching to the sky: In calm magnificence the sun declined, And left a paradise of clouds behind: Proud at his feet, with pomp of pearl and gold, The billows in a sea of glory roll'd.

—Ah! on this sea of glory might I sail, 'Track the bright sun, and pierce the eternal veil 'That hides those lands, beneath Hesperian skies, 'Whcre day-light sojourns till our morrow rise!'

Thoughtful he wander'd on the beach alone; Mild o'er the deep the vesper planet shone, The eye of evening, brightening through the west Till the sweet moment when it shut to rest: 'Whither, O, golden Venus! art thou fled? 'Not in the ocean-chambers lies thy bed; 'Round the dim world thy glittering chariot drawn 'Pursues the twilight, or precedes the dawn;

'Thy beauty noon and midnight never see, 'The morn and eve divide the year with thee.'

Soft fell the shades, till Cynthia's slender bow Crested the farthest wave, then sunk below: 'Tell me, resplendent guardian of the night, 'Circling the sphere in thy perennial flight, 'What secret path of heaven thy smiles adorn, 'What nameless sea reflects thy gleaming horn?'

Now earth and ocean vanish'd, all serene The starry firmament alone was seen; Through the slow, silent hours, he watch'd the host Of midnight suns in western darkness lost, Till Night himself, on shadowy pinions borne, Fled o'er the mighty waters, and the morn Danced on the mountains:—'Lights of heaven!' he cried, 'Lead on;—I go to win a glorious bride;

'Fearless o'er gulphs unknown I urge my way, 'Where peril prowls, and shipwreck lurks for prey: 'Hope swells my sail;—in spirit I behold 'That maiden world, twin-sister of the old, 'By nature nursed beyond the jealous sea, 'Denied to ages, but betrothed to me.'2

The winds were prosperous, and the billows bore The brave adventurer to the promised shore; Far in the west, array'd in purple light, Dawn'd the new world on his enraptured sight: Not Adam, loosen'd from the encumbering earth, Waked by the breath of God to instant birth, With sweeter, wilder wonder gazed around, When life within, and light without he found; When all creation rushing o'er his soul, He seem'd to live and breathe throughout the whole. So felt Columbus, when, divinely fair, At the last look of resolute despair,

The Hesperian isles, from distance dimly blue, With gradual beauty open'd on his view. In that proud moment, his transported mind The morning and the evening worlds combined, And made the sea, that sunder'd them before, A bond of peace, uniting shore to shore.

Vain, visionary hope! rapacious Spain Follow'd her hero's triumph o'er the main, Her hardy sons in fields of battle tried, Where Moor and Christian desperately died, A rabid race, fanatically bold, And steel'd to cruelty by lust of gold, Traversed the waves, the unknown world explored, The cross their standard, but their faith the sword; Their steps were graves; o'er prostrate realms they trod; They worshipp'd Mammon while they vow'd to God.

Let nobler bards in loftier numbers tell How Cortez conquer'd, Montezuma fell; How grim Pizarro's ruffian arm o'erthrew The sun's resplendent empire in Peru; How, like a prophet, old Las Casas stood, And raised his voice against a sea of blood, Whose chilling waves recoil'd while he foretold His country's ruin by avenging gold. —That gold, for which unpitied Indians fell, That gold at once the snare and scourge of hell, Thenceforth by righteous heaven was doom'd to shed Unmingled curses on the spoiler's head; For gold the Spaniard cast his soul away,— His gold and he were every nation's prey.

But themes like these would ask an angel-lyre, Language of light and sentiment of fire; Give me to sing, in melancholy strains, Of Charib martyrdoms and negro chains;

One race by tyrants rooted from the earth, One doom'd to slavery by the taint of birth!

Where first his drooping sails Columbus furl'd, And sweetly rested in another world, Amidst the heaven-reflecting ocean, smiles A constellation of elysian isles; Fair as Orion when he mounts on high, Sparkling with midnight splendour from the sky: They bask beneath the sun's meridian rays, When not a shadow breaks the boundless blaze; The breath of ocean wanders through their vales In morning breezes and in evening gales: Earth from her lap perennial verdure pours, Ambrosial fruits, and amaranthine flowers; O'er the wild mountains and luxuriant plains, Nature in all the pomp of beauty reigns, In all the pride of freedom.—Nature free Proclaims that Man was born for liberty:

She flourishes where'er the sun-beams play O'er living fountains, sallying into day; She withers where the waters cease to roll, And night and winter stagnate round the pole: Man too, where freedom's beams and fountains rise, Springs from the dust, and blossoms to the skies; Dead to the joys of light and life, the slave Clings to the clod; his root is in the grave; Bondage is winter, darkness, death, despair, Freedom the sun, the sea, the mountains, and the air!

In placid indolence supinely blest, A feeble race these beauteous isles possess'd; Untamed, untaught, in arts and arms unskill'd, Their patrimonial soil they rudely till'd, Chased the free rovers of the savage wood; Insnared the wild-bird, swept the scaly flood, Shelter'd in lowly huts their fragile forms From burning suns and desolating storms;

Or when the halcyon sported on the breeze, In light canoes they skimm'd the ripling seas; Their lives in dreams of soothing languor flew, No parted joys, no future pains they knew, The passing moment all their bliss or care; Such as the sires had been, the children were From age to age; as waves upon the tide Of stormless time, they calmly lived and died.

Dreadful as hurricanes, athwart the main Rush'd the fell legions of invading Spain; With fraud and force, with false and fatal breath, (Submission bondage, and resistance death,) They swept the isles. In vain the simple race Kneel'd to the iron sceptre of their grace, Or with weak arms their fiery vengeance braved; They came, they saw, they conquer'd, they enslaved, And they destroy'd;—the generous heart they broke, They crush'd the timid neck beneath the yoke;

Where'er to battle march'd their grim array, The sword of conquest plough'd resistless way; Where'er from cruel toil they sought repose, Around, the fires of devastation rose. The Indian, as he turn'd his head in flight, Beheld his cottage flaming through the night, And, midst the shrieks of murder on the wind, Heard the mute blood-hound's death-step close behind.

The conflict o'er, the valiant in their graves, The wretched remnant dwindled into slaves; Condemn'd in pestilential cells to pine, Delving for gold amidst the gloomy mine. The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath, Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death: —Condemn'd to fell the mountain palm on high, That cast its shadow from the evening sky, Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke, The woodman languish'd, and his heart-strings broke:

—Condemn'd in torrid noon, with palsied hand, To urge the slow plough o'er the obdurate land, The labourer, smitten by the sun's fierce ray, A corpse along the unfinish'd furrow lay. O'erwhelm'd at length with ignominious toil, Mingling their barren ashes with the soil, Down to the dust the Charib people pass'd, Like autumn foliage withering in the blast: The whole race sunk beneath the oppressor's rod, And left a blank among the works of God.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

Part II.

THE

WEST INDIES.

PART II.

ARGUMENT.

The Cane.—Africa.—The Negro.—The Slave-carrying Trade.—The Means and Resources of the Slave Trade.—The Portuguese.—Dutch,—Dunes,—French,—and English in America.

Among the bowers of paradise, that graced Those islands of the world-dividing waste, Where towering cocoas waved their graceful locks, And vines luxuriant cluster'd round the rocks; Where orange-groves perfumed the circling air, With verdure, flowers, and fruit for ever fair; Gay mirtle-foliage track'd the winding rills, And cedar forests slumber'd on the hills;

—An eastern plant, ingrafted on the soil,1 Was till'd for ages with consuming toil; No tree of knowledge with forbidden fruit, Death in the taste, and ruin at the root, Yet in its growth were good and evil found, It bless'd the planter, but it cursed the ground; While with vain wealth it gorged the master's hoard, And spread with manna his luxurious board, Its culture was perdition to the slave, It sapp'd his life, and flourish'd on his grave.

When the fierce spoiler from remorseless Spain Tasted the balmy spirit of the cane, (Already had his rival in the west, From the rich reed ambrosial sweetness press'd,) Dark through his thoughts the miser purpose roll'd To turn its hidden treasures into gold. But at his breath, by pestilent decay, The Indian tribes were swiftly swept away;

Silence and horror o'er the isles were spread, The living seem'd the spectres of the dead. The Spaniard saw; no sigh of pity stole, No pang of conscience touch'd his sullen soul; The tiger weeps not o'er the kid;―he turns His flashing eyes abroad, and madly burns For nobler victims, and for warmer blood: Thus on the Charib shore the tyrant stood, Thus cast his eyes with fury o'er the tide, And far beyond the gloomy gulph descried Devoted Africa: he burst away, And with a yell of transport grasp'd his prey.

Where the stupendous Mountains of the Moon Cast their broad shadows o'er the realms of noon; From rude Caffraria, where the giraffes browse, With stately heads among the forest boughs, To Atlas, where Numidian lions glow With torrid fire beneath eternal snow:

From Nubian hills, that hail the dawning day, To Guinea's coast, where evening fades away, Regions immense, unsearchable, unknown, Bask in the splendour of the solar zone; A world of wonders,—where creation seems No more the work of Nature but her dreams; Great, wild, and beautiful, beyond controul, She reigns in all the freedom of her soul; Where none can check her bounty when she showers O'er the gay wilderness her fruits and flowers; None brave her fury, when, with whirlwind breath, And earthquake step, she walks abroad with death; O'er boundless plains she holds her fiery flight, In terrible magnificence of light; At blazing noon pursues the evening breeze, Through the dun gloom of realm-o'ershadowing trees, Her thirst at Nile's mysterious fountain quells, Or bathes in secrecy where Niger swells An inland ocean, on whose jasper rocks With shells and sea-flower-wreaths she binds her locks:

She sleeps on isles of velvet verdure, placed Midst sandy gulphs and shoals for ever waste; She guides her countless flocks to cherish'd rills, And feeds her cattle on a thousand hills; Her steps the wild bees welcome through the vale, From every blossom that embalms the gale; The slow unwieldy river-horse she leads Through the deep waters, o'er the pasturing meads; And climbs the mountains that invade the sky, To sooth the eagle's nestlings when they cry. At sun-set, when voracious monsters burst From dreams of blood, awaked by maddering thirst; When the lorn caves, in which they shrunk from light, Ring with wild echoes through the hideous night; When darkness seems alive, and all the air Is one tremendous uproar of despair, Horror and agony;—on her they call; She hears their clamour, she provides for all, Leads the light leopard on his eager way, And goads the gaunt hyæna to his prey.

In these romantic regions Man grows wild; Here dwells the negro, Nature's outcast child, Scorn'd by his brethren; but his mother's eye, That gazes on him from her warmest sky, Sees in his flexile limbs untutor'd grace, Power on his forehead, beauty in his face; Sees in his breast, where lawless passions rove, The heart of friendship and the home of love; Sees in his mind, where desolation reigns, Fierce as his clime, uncultured as his plains, A soil where virtue's fairest flowers might shoot, And trees of science bend with glorious fruit; Sees in his soul, involved with thickest night, An emanation of eternal light, Ordain'd, midst sinking worlds, his dust to fire, And shine for ever when the stars expire. Is he not Man, though knowledge never shed Her quickening beams on his neglected head? Is he not Man, though sweet religion's voice Ne'er bade the mourner in his God rejoice?

Is he not man, by sin and suffering tried? Is he not man, for whom the Saviour died? Belie the Negro's powers:—In headlong will, Christian! thy brother thou shalt prove him still; Belie his virtues; since his wrongs began, His follies and his crimes have stampt him Man.

The Spaniard found him such:—the island-race His foot had spurn'd from earth's insulted face; Among the waifs and foundlings of mankind, Abroad he look'd, a sturdier stock to find; A spring of life, whose fountains should supply His channels as he drank the rivers dry: That stock he found on Afric's swarming plains, That spring he open'd in the Negro's veins; A spring, exhaustless as his avarice drew, A stock that like Prometheus' vitals grew Beneath the eternal beak his heart that tore, Beneath the insatiate thirst that drain'd his gore.

Thus, childless as the Charibbeans died, Afric's strong sons the ravening waste supplied; Of hardier fibre to endure the yoke, And self-renew'd beneath the severing stroke; As grim oppression crush'd them to the tomb, Their fruitful parent's miserable womb Teem'd with fresh myriads, crowded o'er the waves, Heirs to their toil, their sufferings, and their graves.

Freighted with curses was the bark that bore The spoilers of the west to Guinea's shore; Heavy with groans of anguish blew the gales That swell'd that fatal bark's returning sails; Old Ocean shrunk as o'er his surface flew The human cargo and the demon crew. —Thenceforth, unnumber'd as the waves that roll From sun to sun, or pass from pole to pole, Outcasts and exiles from their country torn, In floating dungeons o'er the gulph were borne:

—The valiant seized, in peril-daring fight; The weak, surprised in nakedness and night; Subjects by mercenary despots sold; Victims of justice prostitute for gold; Brothers by brothers, friends by friends betray'd; Snared in her lover's arms the trusting maid; The faithful wife by her false lord estranged, For one wild cup of drunken bliss exchanged; From the brute-mother's knee, the infant-boy, Kidnapp'd in slumber, barter'd for a toy; The father resting at his father's tree, Doom'd by the son to die beyond the sea: —All bonds of kindred, law, alliance broke, All ranks, all nations crouching to the yoke; From fields of light, unshadowed climes that lie Panting beneath the sun's meridian eye, From hidden Ethiopia's utmost land; From Zaara's fickle wilderness of sand; From Congo's blazing plains and blooming woods; From Whidah's hills, that gush with golden floods;

Captives of tyrant power and dastard wiles, Dispeopled Africa, and gorged the isles. Loud and perpetual o'er the Atlantic waves, For guilty ages, roll'd the tide of slaves; A tide that knew no fall, no turn, no rest, Constant as day and night from east to west; Still widening, deepening, swelling in its course, With boundless ruin and resistless force.

Quickly by Spain's alluring fortune fired, With hopes of fame, and dreams of wealth inspired, Europe's dread powers, from ignominious ease Started; their pennons stream'd on every breeze: And still where'er the wide discoveries spread, The cane was planted and the native bled; While, nursed by fiercer suns, of nobler race, The negro toil'd and perish'd in his place.

First, Lusitania,—she whose prows had borne Her arms triumphant round the car of morn,

—Turn'd to the setting sun her bright array, And hung her trophies o'er the couch of day.

Holland,—whose hardy sons roll'd back the sea, To build the halcyon-nest of liberty, —Shameless abroad the enslaving flag unfurl'd, And reign'd a despot in the younger world.

Denmark,—whose roving hordes, in barbarous times, Fill'd the wide north with piracy and crimes, Awed every shore, and taught their keels to sweep O'er every sea, the Arabs of the deep, —Embark'd, once more to western conquest led By Rollo's spirit, risen from the dead.

Gallia,—who vainly aim'd, in depth of night, To hurl old Rome from her Tarpeian height, (But lately laid, with unprevented blow, The thrones of kings, the hopes of freedom low,)

—Rush'd o'er the theatre of splendid toils, To brave the dangers and divide the spoils.

Britannia,—she who scathed the crest of Spain, And won the trident sceptre of the main, When to the raging wind and ravening tide She gave the huge Armada's scatter'd pride, Smit by the thunder-wielding hand that hurl'd Her vengeance round the wave-encircled world; —Britannia shared the glory and the guilt, By her were Slavery's island-altars built, And fed with human victims;—while the cries Of blood, demanding vengeance from the skies, Assail'd her traders' grovelling hearts in vain, —Hearts dead to sympathy, alive to gain, Hard from impunity, with avarice cold, Sordid as earth, insensible as gold.

Thus through a night of ages, in whose shade The sons of darkness plied the infernal trade,

Wild Africa beheld her tribes, at home, In battle slain; abroad, condemn'd to roam O'er the salt waves, in stranger-isles to bear, (Forlorn of hope, and sold into despair,) Through life's slow journey, to its dolorous close, Unseen, unwept, unutterable woes.

END OF THE SECOND PART

Part III.

THE

WEST INDIES.

PART III.

ARGUMENT.

The Love of Country, and of Home, the same in all Ages and among all Nations.—The Negro's Home and Country.—Mungo Parke.—Progress of the Slave Trade.—The Middle Passage.—The Negro in the West Indies.—The Guinea Captain.—The Creole Planter.—The Moors of Barbary.—Buccaneers.—Maroons.—St Domingo.—Hurricanes.—The Yellow Fever.

There is a land, of every land the pride, Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside; Where brighter suns dispense serener light, And milder moons emparadise the night;

A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth, Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth: The wandering mariner, whose eye explores The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air; In every clime the magnet of his soul, Touch'd by remembrance, trembles to that pole; For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace, The heritage of nature's noblest race, There is a spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, While in his soften'd looks benignly blend The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend: Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife, Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life; In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, An angel-guard of loves and graces lie;

Around her knees domestic duties meet, And fire-side pleasures gambol at her feet. "Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?" Art thou a man?—a patriot?—look around; O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, That land thy country, and that spot thy home!

On Greenland's rocks, o'er grim Kamschatka's plains, In pale Siberia's desolate domains; When the wild hunter takes his lonely way, Tracks through tempestuous snows his savage prey, The rein-deer's spoil, the ermine's treasure shares, And feasts his famine on the fat of bears; Or, wrestling with the might of raging seas, Where round the pole the eternal billows freeze, Plucks from their jaws the stricken whale, in vain Plunging down head-long through the whirling main; —His wastes of ice are lovelier in his eye Than all the flowery vales beneath the sky,

And dearer far than Cæsar's palace-dome, His cavern-shelter, and his cottage-home.

O'er China's garden-fields and peopled floods; In California's pathless world of woods; Round Andes' heights, where Winter, from his throne, Looks down in scorn upon the summer zone; By the gay borders of Bermuda's isles, Where Spring with everlasting verdure smiles; On pure Madeira's vine-robed hills of health; In Java's swamps of pestilence and wealth; Where Babel stood, where wolves and jackals drink, Midst weeping willows, on Euphrates' brink; On Carmel's crest; by Jordan's reverend stream, Where Canaan's glories vanish'd like a dream; Where Greece, a spectre, haunts her heroes' graves, And Rome's vast ruins darken Tiber's waves; Where broken-hearted Switzerland bewails Her subject mountains and dishonour'd vales;

Where Albion's rocks exult amidst the sea, Around the beauteous isle of Liberty; —Man, through all ages of revolving time, Unchanging man, in every varying clime, Deems his own land of every land the pride, Beloved by heav'n o'er all the world beside; His home the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

And is the Negro outlaw'd from his birth? Is he alone a stranger on the earth? Is there no shed, whose peeping roof appears So lovely that it fills his eyes with tears? No land, whose name, in exile heard, will dart Ice through his veins and lightning through his heart? Ah! yes; beneath the beams of brighter skies, His home amidst his father's country lies; There with the partner of his soul he shares Love-mingled pleasures, love-divided cares;

There, as with nature's warmest filial fire, He sooths his blind, and feeds his helpless sire; His children sporting round his hut behold How they shall cherish him when he is old, Train'd by example from their tenderest youth To deeds of charity and words of truth.1 —Is he not blest? Behold, at closing day, The negro-village swarms abroad to play; He treads the dance through all its rapturous rounds, To the wild music of barbarian sounds; Or, stretch'd at ease, where broad palmettos shower Delicious coolness in his shadowy bower, He feasts on tales of witchcraft, that gave birth To breathless wonder, or ecstatic mirth; Yet most delighted when in rudest rhymes, The minstrel wakes the song of elder times, When men were heroes, slaves to Beauty's charms, And all the joys of life were love and arms. —Is not the Negro blest? His generous soil With harvest-plenty crowns his simple toil;

More than his wants his flocks and fields afford; He loves to greet the stranger at his board: 'The winds were roaring and the White Man fled; 'The rains of night descended on his head; 'The poor White Man sat down beneath our tree, 'Weary and faint, and far from home was he: 'For him no mother fills with milk the bowl, 'No wife prepares the bread to cheer his soul: '—Pity the poor White Man, who sought our tree, 'No wife, no mother, and no home has he.' Thus sung the Negro's daughters ;—once again, O, that the poor White Man might hear that strain! —Whether the victim of the treacherous Moor; Or from the Negro's hospitable door Spurn'd, as a spy, from Europe's hateful clime, And left to perish for thy country's crime; Or destin'd still, when all thy wanderings cease, On Albion's lovely lap to rest in peace; Pilgrim! in heaven or earth, where'er thou be, Angels of mercy guide and comfort thee!

Thus lived the Negro in his native land, Till Christian cruisers anchor'd on his strand; Where'er their grasping arms the spoilers spread, The Negro's joys, the Negro's virtues fled; Till, far amidst the wilderness unknown, They flourish'd in the sight of Heaven alone: While from the coast, with wide and wider sweep, The race of Mammon dragg'd across the deep Their sable victims, to that western bourn, From which no traveller might e'er return, To blazon in the ears of future slaves The secrets of the world beyond the waves.

When the loud trumpet of eternal doom Shall break the mortal bondage of the tomb; When with the mother's pangs the expiring earth Shall bring her children forth to second birth; Then shall the sea's mysterious caverns, spread With human relics, render up their dead:

Though warm with life the heaving surges glow, Where'er the winds of heaven were wont to blow, In sevenfold phalanx shall the rallying hosts Of ocean-slumberers join their wandering ghosts, Along the melancholy gulph, that roars From Guinea to the Charibbean shores. Myriads of slaves, that perish'd on the way, From age to age the shark's appointed prey, By livid plagues, by lingering tortures slain, Or headlong plunged alive into the main,2 Shall rise in judgment from their gloomy beds, And call down vengeance on their murderers' heads.

Yet small the number, and the fortune blest, Of those who on the stormy deep found rest, Weigh'd with the unremember'd millions more, That 'scaped the sea, to perish on the shore, By the slow pangs of solitary care, The earth-devouring anguish of despair,3

The broken heart, which kindness never heals, The home-sick passion which the negro feels, When toiling, fainting in the land of canes, His spirit wanders to his native plains; His little lovely dwelling there he sees, Beneath the shade of his paternal trees, The home of comfort:—then before his eyes The terrors of captivity arise. —'Twas night:—his babes around him lay at rest, Their mother slumber'd on their father's breast: A yell of murder rang around their bed; They woke; their cottage blazed; the victims fled; Forth sprang the ambush'd ruffians on their prey, They caught, they bound, they drove them far away; The white man bought them at the mart of blood; In pestilential barks they cross'd the flood; Then were the wretched ones asunder torn, To distant isles, to separate bondage borne, Denied, though sought with tears, the sad relief That misery loves,—the fellowship of grief.

The negro, spoiled of all that nature gave, The freeborn man, thus shrunk into a slave, His passive limbs to measured tasks confined, Obey'd the impulse of another mind; A silent, secret, terrible controul, That ruled his sinews, and repress'd his soul. Not for himself he waked at morning-light, Toil'd the long day, and sought repose at night; His rest, his labour, pastime, strength, and health, Were only portions of a master's wealth; His love—O, name not love, where Britons doom The fruit of love to slavery from the womb.

Thus spurn'd, degraded, trampled, and oppress'd, The negro-exile languish'd in the west, With nothing left of life but hated breath, And not a hope except the hope in death, To fly for ever from the Creole-strand, And dwell a freeman in his fathers' land.

Lives there a savage ruder than the slave? —Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave, False as the winds that round his vessel blow, Remorseless as the gulph that yawns below, Is he who toils upon the wafting flood, A Christian broker in the trade of blood; Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold, He buys, he sells,—he steals, he kills, for gold. At noon, when sky and ocean, calm and clear, Bend round his bark, one blue unbroken sphere; When dancing dolphins sparkle through the brine, And sun-beam circles o'er the waters shine; He sees no beauty in the heaven serene, No soul-enchanting sweetness in the scene, But darkly scowling at the glorious day, Curses the winds that loiter on their way. When swoln with hurricanes the billows rise, To meet the lightning midway from the skies; When from the unburthen'd hold his shrieking slaves Are cast, at midnight, to the hungry waves;

Not for his victims strangled in the deeps, Not for his crimes the harden'd pirate weeps, But grimly smiling, when the storm is o'er, Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more.4

Lives there a reptile baser than the slave?5 —Loathsome as death, corrupted as the grave, See the dull Creole, at his pompous board, Attendant vassals cringing round their lord; Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close, Voluptuous minions fan him to repose; Prone on the noonday couch he lolls in vain, Delirious slumbers rock his maudlin brain; He starts in horror from bewildering dreams, His bloodshot eye with fire and frenzy gleams; He stalks abroad; through all his wonted rounds, The negro trembles, and the lash resounds, And cries of anguish, shrilling through the air, To distant fields his dread approach declare.