The Slave-Ships

"That fatal, that perfidious bark,Built I' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark."MILTON'S Lycidas.

"ALL ready?" cried the captain;"Ay, ay!" the seamen said;"Heave up the worthless lubbers,--The dying and the dead."Up from the slave-ship's prisonFierce, bearded heads were thrust:"Now let the sharks look to it,--Toss 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 castSullenly from the ship,Yet bloody with the tracesOf 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,The horror of a breaking heartPoured through a mother's groan.

Up from that loathsome prisonThe stricken blind ones caneBelow, had all been darkness,Above, was still the same.Yet the holy breath of heavenWas sweetly breathing there,And the heated brow of feverCooled in the soft sea air.

"Overboard with them, shipmates!"Cutlass and dirk were plied;Fettered and blind, one after one,Plunged down the vessel's side.The sabre smote above,Beneath, the lean shark lay,Waiting with wide and bloody jawHis quick and human prey.

God of the earth! what criesRang upward unto thee?Voices of agony and blood,From ship-deck and from sea.The last dull plunge was heard,The last wave caught its stain,And the unsated shark looked upFor human hearts in vain.

Red glowed the western waters,The setting sun was there,Scattering alike on wave and cloudHis fiery mesh of hair.Amidst a group in blindness,A solitary eyeGazed, from the burdened slaver's deck,Into that burning sky.

"A storm," spoke out the gazer,"Is gathering and at hand;Curse on 't, I'd give my other eyeFor one firm rood of land."And then he laughed, but onlyHis echoed laugh replied,For the blinded and the sufferingAlone were at his side.

Night settled on the waters,And on a stormy heaven,While fiercely on that lone ship's trackThe thunder-gust was driven."A sail!--thank God, a sail!"And as the helmsman spoke,Up through the stormy murmurA shout of gladness broke.

Down came the stranger vessel,Unheeding on her way,So near that on the slaver's deckFell off her driven spray."Ho! for the love of mercy,We're perishing and blind!"A wail of utter agonyCame back upon the wind.

"Help us! for we are strickenWith blindness every one;Ten days we've floated fearfully,Unnoting star or sun.Our ship 's the slaver Leon,--We've but a score on board;Our slaves are all gone over,--Help, for the love of God!"

On livid brows of agonyThe broad red lightning shone;But the roar of wind and thunderStifled the answering groan;Wailed from the broken watersA last despairing cry,As, kindling in the stormy' light,The stranger ship went by.

In the sunny GuadaloupeA dark-hulled vessel lay,With a crew who noted neverThe nightfall or the day.The blossom of the orangeWas white by every stream,And tropic leaf, and flower, and birdWere in the warns sunbeam.

And the sky was bright as ever,And the moonlight slept as well,On the palm-trees by the hillside,And the streamlet of the dell:And the glances of the CreoleWere still as archly deep,And her smiles as full as everOf passion and of sleep.

But vain were bird and blossom,The green earth and the sky,And the smile of human faces,To the slaver's darkened eye;At the breaking of the morning,At the star-lit evening time,O'er a world of light and beautyFell the blackness of his crime.