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The plunderer came!—alas! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian Isles;
Forever fallen! no son of Nature now,
With Freedom chartered on his manly I brow!
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart; for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore!
The shrill horn blew; at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell!
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!
Poor fettered man! I bear thee whispering how
Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Woe,
Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbour there
A wish but death—a passion but despair?
The widowed Indian, when her lord expires,
Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires.
So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh!
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!
But not to Libya's barren climes alone,
To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,
Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!
Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!
How long your tribes have trembled and obeyed!
How long was Timour's iron sceptre swayed,
Whose marshalled hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Raged o'er your plundered shrines and altars bare,
With blazing torch and gory cimitar,—
For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian Isles;
Forever fallen! no son of Nature now,
With Freedom chartered on his manly I brow!
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart; for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore!
The shrill horn blew; at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell!
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!
Poor fettered man! I bear thee whispering how
Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Woe,
Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbour there
A wish but death—a passion but despair?
The widowed Indian, when her lord expires,
Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires.
So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh!
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!
But not to Libya's barren climes alone,
To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,
Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!
Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!
How long your tribes have trembled and obeyed!
How long was Timour's iron sceptre swayed,
Whose marshalled hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Raged o'er your plundered shrines and altars bare,
With blazing torch and gory cimitar,—
