Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE FIRST SLAVE SHIP, by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE FIRST SLAVE SHIP, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: First of that train which cursed the wave
Last Line: A friend, -- a father in their god.
Subject(s): God; Pain; Ships & Shipping; Slavery; Tears; Suffering; Misery; Serfs


First of that train which cursed the wave,
And from the rifled cabin bore,
Inheritor of wo, -- the slave
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 their 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 Unforgetful Breast
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.





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