Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/24
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She flourishes where'er the sun-beams play
O'er living fountains, sallying into day;
She withers where the waters cease to roll,
And night and winter stagnate round the pole:
Man too, where freedom's beams and fountains rise,
Springs from the dust, and blossoms to the skies;
Dead to the joys of light and life, the slave
Clings to the clod; his root is in the grave;
Bondage is winter, darkness, death, despair,
Freedom the sun, the sea, the mountains, and the air!
O'er living fountains, sallying into day;
She withers where the waters cease to roll,
And night and winter stagnate round the pole:
Man too, where freedom's beams and fountains rise,
Springs from the dust, and blossoms to the skies;
Dead to the joys of light and life, the slave
Clings to the clod; his root is in the grave;
Bondage is winter, darkness, death, despair,
Freedom the sun, the sea, the mountains, and the air!
In placid indolence supinely blest,
A feeble race these beauteous isles possess'd;
Untamed, untaught, in arts and arms unskill'd,
Their patrimonial soil they rudely till'd,
Chased the free rovers of the savage wood;
Insnared the wild-bird, swept the scaly flood,
Shelter'd in lowly huts their fragile forms
From burning suns and desolating storms;
A feeble race these beauteous isles possess'd;
Untamed, untaught, in arts and arms unskill'd,
Their patrimonial soil they rudely till'd,
Chased the free rovers of the savage wood;
Insnared the wild-bird, swept the scaly flood,
Shelter'd in lowly huts their fragile forms
From burning suns and desolating storms;