Where then was he, whose fiery zeal
Had taught the trampled heart to feel,
Until despair itself grew strong,

And vengeance fed its torch from wrong?
Now-when the thunder-bolt is speeding;
Now when oppression's heart is bleeding;
Now-when the latent curse of Time
Is raining down in fire and blood-
That curse which, through long years of crime,
Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood—
Why strikes he not, the foremost one,
Where murder's sternest deeds are done?

He stood the aged palms beneath,

That shadowed o'er his humble door,
Listening, with half-suspended breath,
To the wild sounds of fear and death-
Toussaint l'Ouverture!

What marvel that his heart beat high!
The blow for freedom had been given;
And blood had answered to the cry
Which earth sent up to Heaven!
What marvel, that a fierce delight
Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night,
As groan, and shout, and bursting flame,
Told where the midnight tempest came,
With blood and fire along its van,
And death behind!-he was a Man!

Yes, dark-souled chieftain !—if the light
Of mild Religion's heavenly ray
Unveiled not to thy mental sight

The lowlier and the purer way,
In which the Holy Sufferer trod,
Meekly amidst the sons of crime,-
That calm reliance upon God

For justice, in his own good time,—
That gentleness, to which belongs
Forgiveness for its many wrongs,

Even as the primal martyr, kneeling
For mercy on the evil-dealing,-
Let not the favored white man name
Thy stern appeal, with words of blame.
Has he not, with the light of heaven
Broadly around him, made the same?
Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven,
And gloried in his ghastly shame ?—
Kneeling amidst his brother's blood,
To offer mockery unto God,

As if the High and Holy One

Could smile on deeds of murder done!-
As if a human sacrifice

Were purer in his Holy eyes,

Though offered up by Christian hands,
Than the foul rites of Pagan lands!

Sternly, amidst his household band,
His carbine grasped within his hand,
The white man stood, prepared and still,
Waiting the shock of maddened men,
Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when
The horn winds through their caverned hill
And one was weeping in his sight-

The sweetest flower of all the isle,-
The bride who seemed but yesternight
Love's fair embodied smile.

And, clinging to her trembling knee,
Looked up the form of infancy,
With tearful glance in either face,
The secret of its fear to trace.

"Ha-stand or die!" The white man's eye His steady musket gleamed along, As a tall Negro hastened nigh,

With fearless step and strong.

"What, ho, Touissaint!" A moment more, His shadow crossed the lighted floor.

"Away," he shouted; "fly with me,-
The white man's bark is on the sea;-
Her sails must catch the seaward wind,
For sudden vengeance sweeps behind.
Our brethren from their graves have spoken,
The yoke is spurned-the chain is broken;
On all the hills our fires are glowing-
Through all the vales red blood is flowing!
No more the mocking White shall rest
His foot upon the Negro's breast;
No more, at morn or eve, shall drip
The warm blood from the driver's whip;-
Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn
For all the wrongs his race have borne,-
Though for each drop of Negro blood
The white man's veins shall pour a flood;
Not all alone the sense of ill

Around his heart is lingering still,
Nor deeper can the white man feel
The generous warmth of grateful zeal.
Friends of the Negro! fly with me-
The path is open to the sea:

Away, for life!"—He spoke, and pressed
The young child to his manly breast,
As, headlong, through the cracking cane,
Down swept the dark insurgent train—
Drunken and grim, with shout and yell
Howled through the dark, like sounds from hell

Far out, in peace, the white man's sail
Swayed free before the sunrise gale.
Cloud-like that island hung afar,

Along the bright horizon's verge,
O'er which the curse of servile war
Rolled its red torrent, surge on surge.
And he the Negro champion-where
In the fierce tumult, struggled he?
Go trace him by the fiery glare
Of dwellings in the midnight air-

The yells of triumph and despair-
The streams that crimson to the sea!

Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb,
Beneath Besançon's alien sky,

Dark Haytien !—for the time shall come,
Yea, even now is nigh-

When, every where, thy name shall be
Redeemed from color's infamy;
And men shall learn to speak of thee,
As one of earth's great spirits, born
In servitude, and nursed in scorn,
Casting aside the weary weight
And fetters of its low estate,

In that strong majesty of soul,

Which knows no color, tongue or clime-
Which still hath spurned the base control
Of tyrants through all time!

Far other hands than mine may wreath
The laurel round thy brow of death,
And speak thy praise, as one whose word
A thousand fiery spirits stirred,-

Who crushed his foeman as a worm-
Whose step on human hearts fell firm :— 3
Be mine the better task to find

shone

A tribute for thy lofty mind,
Amidst whose gloomy vengeance
Some milder virtues all thine own,—
Some gleams of feeling pure and warm,
Like sunshine on a sky of storm,—
Proofs that the Negro's heart retains
Some nobleness amidst its chains,-
That kindness to the wronged is never
Without its excellent reward,—
Holy to human-kind, and ever
Acceptable to God.

66

THE SLAVE SHIPS. 34

-That fatal, that perfidious bark, Built i' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark." Milton's Lycidas

66

"ALL ready?" cried the captain;
Ay, ay
I" the seamen said;
"Heave up the worthless lubbers—
The dying and the dead."

Up from the slave-ship's prison

Fierce, bearded heads were thrust"Now let the sharks look to itToss up the dead ones first!"

Corpse after corpse came up,-
Death had been busy there;
Where every blow is mercy,
Why should the spoiler spare?
Corpse after corpse they cast
Sullenly from the ship,
Yet bloody with the traces
Of fetter-link and whip.

Gloomily stood the captain,

With his arms upon his breast,
With his cold brow sternly knotted,
And his iron lip compressed.
"Are all the dead dogs over?"
Growled through that matted lip—
"The blind ones are no better,
Let's lighten the good ship."

Hark! from the ship's dark bosom,
The very sounds of hell!
The ringing clank of iron-

The maniac's short, sharp yell!—
The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled-
The starving infant's moan-