Classic Poem

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.