Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/57
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His children, sprung alike from sloth and vice,
Are born his slaves, and loved at market price:
Has he a soul?—With his departing breath,
A form shall hail him at the gates of death,
The spectre Conscience,—shrieking through the gloom,
'Man, we shall meet again beyond the tomb.'
Are born his slaves, and loved at market price:
Has he a soul?—With his departing breath,
A form shall hail him at the gates of death,
The spectre Conscience,—shrieking through the gloom,
'Man, we shall meet again beyond the tomb.'
O Africa! amidst thy children's woes,
Did earth and heaven conspire to aid thy foes?
No, thou hadst vengeance—From thy northern shores
Sallied the lawless corsairs of the Moors,
And back on Europe's guilty nations hurl'd
Thy wrongs and sufferings in the sister world:
Deep in thy dungeons Christians clank'd their chains,
Or toil'd and perish'd on thy parching plains.
Did earth and heaven conspire to aid thy foes?
No, thou hadst vengeance—From thy northern shores
Sallied the lawless corsairs of the Moors,
And back on Europe's guilty nations hurl'd
Thy wrongs and sufferings in the sister world:
Deep in thy dungeons Christians clank'd their chains,
Or toil'd and perish'd on thy parching plains.
But where thine offspring crouch'd beneath the yoke,
In heavier peals the avenging thunder broke.
In heavier peals the avenging thunder broke.