First of that train which cursed the wave, And from the rifled cabin bore, Inheritor of wo, -- @3the slave@1 To bless his palm-tree's shade no more. Dire engine! -- o'er the troubled main Borne on in unresisted state, -- Know'st thou within thy dark domain The secrets of thy prison'd freight? -- Hear'st thou @3their@1 moans whom hope hath fled? -- Wild cries, in agonizing starts? -- Know'st thou thy humid sails are spread With ceaseless sighs from broken hearts? -- The fetter'd chieftain's burning tear. -- The parted lover's mute despair, -- The childless mother's pang severe, -- The orphan's misery, are there. Ah! -- could'st thou from the scroll of fate The annal read of future years, Stripes, -- tortures, -- unrelenting hate. And death-gasps drown'd in slavery's tears. Down, -- down, -- beneath the cleaving main Thou fain would'st plunge where monsters lie, Rather than ope the gates of pain For time and for Eternity. -- Oh Afric! -- what has been thy crime? -- That thus like Eden's fratricide, A mark is set upon thy clime, And every brother shuns thy side. -- Yet are thy wrongs, thou long-distrest! -- Thy burdens, by the world unweigh'd, Safe in that @3Unforgetful Breast@1 Where all the sins of earth are laid. -- Poor outcast slave! -- Our guilty land Should tremble while she drinks thy tears, Or sees in vengeful silence stand, The beacon of thy shorten'd years; -- Should shrink to hear her sons proclaim The sacred truth that heaven is just, -- Shrink even at her Judge's name, -- "Jehovah, -- Saviour of the opprest." The Sun upon thy forehead frown'd, But Man more cruel far than he, Dark fetters on thy spirit bound: -- Look to the mansions of the free! Look to that realm where chains unbind, -- Where the pale tyrant drops his rod, And where the patient sufferers find A friend, -- a father in their God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DAYS TOO SHORT by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES BUCK O' KINGWATTER by ROBERT ANDERSON OF CARLISLE INTROSPECTION by GEORGE ARNOLD RUINED CHURCH by F. W. BATESON MILLCREEK by MATTIE-LOU BLACKWOOD A MORNING PIECE; WRITTEN IN ABSENCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |