Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/56
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Mark, as he passes, every head declined;
Then slowly raised,—to curse him from behind.
This is the veriest wretch on nature's face,
Own'd by no country, spurn'd by every race;
The tether'd tyrant of one narrow span,
The bloated vampire of a living man;
His frame,—a fungus form, of dunghill birth,
That taints the air, and rots above the earth;
His soul;—has he a soul, whose sensual breast
Of selfish passions is a serpent's nest?
Who follows headlong, ignorant, and blind,
The vague brute-instinct of an idiot mind;
Whose heart, midst scenes of suffering senseless grown,
E'en in his mother's lap was chill'd to stone;
Whose torpid pulse no social feelings move;
A stranger to the tenderness of love,
His motley haram charms his gloating eye,
Where ebon, brown, and olive beauties vie;
Then slowly raised,—to curse him from behind.
This is the veriest wretch on nature's face,
Own'd by no country, spurn'd by every race;
The tether'd tyrant of one narrow span,
The bloated vampire of a living man;
His frame,—a fungus form, of dunghill birth,
That taints the air, and rots above the earth;
His soul;—has he a soul, whose sensual breast
Of selfish passions is a serpent's nest?
Who follows headlong, ignorant, and blind,
The vague brute-instinct of an idiot mind;
Whose heart, midst scenes of suffering senseless grown,
E'en in his mother's lap was chill'd to stone;
Whose torpid pulse no social feelings move;
A stranger to the tenderness of love,
His motley haram charms his gloating eye,
Where ebon, brown, and olive beauties vie;