Part I.

O' ER Africa the morning broke,
And many a negro-land reveal'd,
From Europe's eye and Europe's yoke,
In nature's inmost heart conceal'd:
Here roll'd the Nile his glittering train,
From Ethiopia to the main;
And Niger there uncoil'd his length,
That hides his fountain and his strength,
Among the realms of noon;
Casting away their robes of night,
Forth stood in nakedness of light,
The mountains of the moon.

Hush'd were the howlings of the wild,
The leopard in his den lay prone;
Man, while creation round him smiled,
Was sad or savage, man alone;
— Down in the dungeons of Algiers,
The Christian captive woke in tears;
— Caffraria's lean, marauding race
Prowl'd forth on pillage or the chase;
— In Libyan solitude,
The' Arabian horseman scour'd along;
— The caravan's obstreperous throng,
Their dusty march pursued.

But woe grew frantic in the west;
A wily rover of the tide
Had mark'd the hour of Afric's rest,
To snatch her children from her side:
At early dawn, to prospering gales,
The eager seamen stretch their sails;
The anchor rises from its sleep
Beneath the rocking of the deep;
Impatient from the shore,
A vessel steals; — she steals away,
Mute as the lion with his prey,
— A human prey she bore.

Curst was her trade and contraband,
Therefore that keel, by guilty stealth,
Fled with the darkness from the strand,
Laden with living bales of wealth:
Fair to the eye her streamers play'd
With undulating light and shade;
White from her prow the gurgling foam
Flew backward tow'rds the negro's home,
Like his unheeded sighs;
Sooner that melting foam shall reach
His inland home, than yonder beach
Again salute his eyes.

Tongue hath not language to unfold
The secrets of the space between
That vessel's flanks, — whose dungeon-hold
Hides what the sun hath never seen;
Three hundred writhing prisoners there
Breathe one mephitic blast of air
From lip to lip; — like flame supprest,
It bursts from every tortured breast,
With dreary groans and strong;
Lock'd side to side, they feel by starts,
The beating of each other's hearts,
— Their breaking too, ere long.

Light o'er the blue untroubled sea,
Fancy might deem that vessel held
Her voyage to eternity,
By one unchanging breeze impell'd;
— Eternity is in the sky,
Whose span of distance mocks the eye
Eternity upon the main,
The horizon there is sought in vain;
Eternity below
Appears in heaven's inverted face;
And on, through everlasting space,
The' unbounded billows flow.

Yet, while his wandering bark career'd,
The master knew, with stern delight,
That full for port her helm was steer'd,
With aim unerring, day and night.
— Pirate! that port thou ne'er shalt hail;
Thine eye in search of it shall fail:
But, lo! thy slaves expire beneath;
Haste, bring the wretches forth to breathe:
Brought forth, — away they spring,
And headlong in the whelming tide,
Rescued from thee, their sorrows hide
Beneath the halcyon's wing.

Part II.

There came an angel of eclipse,
Who haunts at times the' Atlantic flood,
And smites with blindness, on their ships,
The captives and the men of blood.
— Here , in the hold the blight began,
From eye to eye contagion ran;
Sight, as with burning brands, was quench'd;
None from the fiery trial blench'd,
But, panting for release,
They call'd on death, who, close behind,
Brought pestilence to lead the blind,
From agony to peace.

The twofold plague no power could check;
Unseen its withering arrows flew;
It walk'd in silence on the deck,
And smote from stem to stern the crew:
— As glow-worms dwindle in the shade,
As lamps in charnel-houses fade,
From every orb, with vision fired,
In flitting sparks the light retired;
The sufferers saw it go,
And o'er the ship, the sea, the skies,
Pursued it with their failing eyes,
Till all was black below.

A murmur swell'd along the gale,
All rose, and held their breath to hear;
All look'd, but none could spy a sail,
Although a sail was near;
— " Help! help! " our beckoning sailors cried;
" Help! help! " a hundred tongues replied:
Then hideous clamour rent the air,
Questions and answers of despair:
Few words the mystery clear'd;
The pest had found that second bark,
Where every eye but his was dark,
Whose hand the vessel steer'd.

He, wild with panic, turn'd away,
And thence his shrieking comrades bore;
From either ship the winds convey
Farewells, that soon are heard no more:
— A calm of horror hush'd the waves;
Behold them! — merchant, seamen, slaves,
The blind, the dying, and the dead;
All help, all hope, for ever fled;
Unseen, yet face to face!
Woe past, woe present, woe to come,
Held for a while each victim dumb,
— Impaled upon his place.

It is not in the blood of man
To crouch ingloriously to fate;
Nature will struggle while she can;
Misfortune makes her children great;
The head which lightning hath laid low,
Is hallow'd by the noble blow:
The wretch who yields a felon's breath,
Emerges from the cloud of death,
A spirit on the storm:
But virtue perishing unknown,
Watch'd by the eye of heaven alone,
Is earth's least earthly form.

What were the scenes on board that bark?
The tragedy which none beheld,
When (as the deluge bore the ark),
By power invisible impell'd,
The keel went blindfold through the surge,
Where stream might drift, or tempest urge;
— Plague, famine, thirst, their numbers slew,
And frenzy seized the hardier few
Who yet were spared to try
How everlasting are the pangs,
When life upon a moment hangs,
And death stands mocking by.

Imagination's daring glance
May pierce that vale of mystery,
As in the rapture of a trance,
Things which no eye hath seen to see;
And hear by fits along the gales,
Screams, maniac-laughter, hollow wails:
— They stand, they lie, above, beneath,
Groans of unpitied anguish breathe,
Tears unavailing shed;
Each, in abstraction of despair,
Seems to himself a hermit there,
Alive among the dead.

Yet respite, — respite from his woes,
Even here, the conscious sufferer feels;
Worn down by torture to repose,
Slumber the vanish'd world reveals:
— Ah! then the eyes, extinct in night,
Again behold the blessed light;
Ah! then the frame of rack'd disease
Lays its delighted limbs at ease;
Swift to his own dear land,
The unfetter'd slave with shouts returns,
Hard by his dreaming tyrant burns
At sight of Cuba's strand.

To blank reality they wake,
In darkness opens every eye:
Peace comes; — the negro's heart-strings break,
To him 'tis more than life to die:
— How feels, how fares the man of blood?
In endless exile on the flood,
Rapt, as though fiends his vessel steer'd,
Things which he once believed and fear'd,
— Then scorn'd as idle names, —
Death, judgment, conscience, hell conspire,
With thronging images of fire,
To light up guilt in flames.

Who cried for mercy in that hour,
And found it on the desert sea?
Who to the utmost grasp of power
Wrestled with life's last enemy?
Who, Marius-like, defying fate,
(Marius on fallen Carthage) sate?
Who, through a hurricane of fears,
Clung to the hopes of future years?
And who, with heart unquail'd,
Look'd from time's trembling precipice
Down on eternity's abyss,
Till breath and footing fail'd?

Is there among this crew not one,
— One whom a widow'd mother bare, —
Who mourns far off her only son,
And pours for him her soul in prayer?
Even now , when o'er his soften'd thought,
Remembrance of her love is brought,
To soothe death's agony, and dart
A throb of comfort through his heart, —
Even now a mystic knell
Sounds through her pulse; — she lifts her eye,
Sees a pale spirit passing by,
And hears his voice, " farewell! "

Mother and son shall meet no more:
— The floating tomb of its own dead,
That ship shall never reach a shore;
But, far from track of seamen led,
The sun shall watch it, day by day,
Careering on its lonely way;
Month after month, the moon shine pale
On falling mast and riven sail;
The stars, from year to year,
Mark the bulged flanks, and sunken deck,
Till not a ruin of the wreck
On ocean's face appear.