Now the foaming billows roar
Round about the Slaver’s prore.
Far must speed the fatal ship
To the land of Slavery !
She must brave the angry deep—
Plague and Famine's agony !
Lo ! he comes the Terror-King—
Hunger on the hopeless sea !
Where no mortal hand can bring
Food for gold or sympathy !
The weeping coast is far away —
But further still the land they seek !
Strong were the gales—they now decay —
An air, a breath that mocks the cheek,
Then dies to calm on waves of glass !
And not a truant cloud shall pass
To lend its shade to them that pine
Upon the hot and bitter brine.
They count the days—a score have pass'd :
The ship, as tho' her anchors cast,
Sleeps on the wave, calm-bounden, fast.
Soon three hundred mouths grow dry—
Soon three hundred hungry men—
Gaze up to God's blessed sky—
Pray for food— but pray in vain,
Now the ghastly visage tells
Fiercest woes that man endures—
Foes that mortal arm ne'er quells—
Maladies he never cures !
Hollow cheek and sunken eye—
Burning tongue and livid lip,—
Only slaked in dreaming sleep.
Trembling limbs and beating heart,
Soon't will cease its faculty,
Bid the raving soul depart !
Ha ! the maniac laugh begins !>
Rabid with the rage for food,
Burning in the quenchless flame,
Blessed God ! they curse thy name !
Thine, the good man's sweetest sigh
Tho' afflictions round him fly !
In life, in death, to thee he clings
As bird beneath its parent's wings !
Aye ! the brain in agony spins
Waking thirst for Blackman's blood !
“Ope the hatch !” the hatch they ope;
“Bring the reptiles from their hole !”—
From the fetid hold they grope,
Few that could their limbs control !
“To the deep— or die the death !”
Welcome ! welcome ! to the deep !
Fatherland ! receive their breath—
Ah ! their spirits now shall sleep !
Deep in Ocean's gurgling billow,
Christians make the Blackman's pillow !
Limbs unshackled, how they clung
In a moment's fond delight—
As the evening when they sung
Ere that dread disastrous night !
Husband near the wife once more—
Friend with friend and son with mother—>
Till the billows eddying o'er,
Pitying, Afric's anguish smother !
Half they drown—but half they spare.
“Hold !” the skipper mocks, “Repair
“To whence ye came ! Bolt on the chain !
“Your kinsmen sleep well in the main.
“Back — foul remnants ! ye must live
“Recompense for life to give!”
«Asia, Europe, America, Africa, the West Indies, successively furnish the scene, or place; Ambition and Avarice the action; and the time is from the Creation of Man to his present degradation in the United States of America; for, when we speak of the moral effects of slavery, colour is out of the question—Slavery is general in its effects, disastrous to the master, disastrous to the slave.» A.S.