Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/58

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46

—Leagued with rapacious rovers of the main,
Hayti's barbarian hunters harass'd Spain;6
A mammoth race, invincible in might,
Rapine and massacre their grim delight,
Peril their element;—o'er land and flood
Thy carried fire, and quench'd the flames with blood;
Despairing captives hail'd them from the coasts;
They rush'd to conquest, led by Charib ghosts.

>Tremble, Britannia! while thine islands tell
The appalling mysteries of Obi's spell;7
The wild Maroons, impregnable and free.
Among the mountain holds of liberty,
Sudden as lightning darted on their foe,
Seen like the flash, remember'd like the blow.

When Gallia boasts of dread Marengo's fight,
And Hohenlinden's slaughter-deluged night,
Her spirit sinks;—the sinews of the brave.
That crippled Europe, shrunk before the Slave;