I cannot loathe nor scorn the colour'd man;
Nor deem him far below my Master's love.
I know about the sutures of his skull;
But I have proved him verily my brother.
And I have heard of Toussaint L'Ouverture!
(Perchance I am not so fastidious
As those who have great genius for words;
Yet we dumb doers crave some standing room,
O ye, so deft and dazzling with the tongue!)
Well I remember, after all my toil,
When within grasp of a momentous prize,
Earth seem'd to glide from under; all was failings,
Even as now! my very faithful friends—
Who had plunged in drowning floods to rescue me;
Who had interposed their bodies to avert
The deadly javelin aim'd against my life;
Who, pressing princely favours on my need,
With more than counsel, with material aid,
Further'd my humanizing pilgrimage;13
When Christian Levites would have pass'd me by,
Jingled their gold, and sneer'd "Utopia!"—
My welltried Makololo, they desert me!
Shrinking at last from more long sacrifice,
Bitter and boundless, it may be unavailing—
I shall not reach those Lusian settlements
Upon the long'd-for coast! all urge return.
. . . . Return I will not!
"Return ye then, my people! I will go
Alone, if so indeed it needs must be!"
With heavy tread, with heavier heart, I enter,
Weary and fever-stricken, my small tent
Under a tamarind; and I lean my head
Upon my hand to offer up a prayer.
Silence is all around me in the noon—
Yet only for a little—then I hear
Footsteps approaching; timidly one peers,
And sees me by the tent-pole; first the one,
Then more, have push'd the canvas fold aside;
Falling npon me like repentant children,
Sobbing, with tears they pray to be forgiven:
"We never meant it! We will never leave thee!
"Our own kind Father! be of better cheer!
"Where'er thou leadest, we will follow thee!"
And that poor African, who when I sail'd
For England supplicated to be taken!
It was with bleeding heart I said him nay.
I told him he would perish of the cold
In my bleak country, but he sobb'd with tears:
"O let me come, and perish at your feet!"
Sebweku had a stronger claim than he.
Alas! Sebweku!
The sea was rolling mountains high, when all
Embark'd at Kilimane in a boat.
Ascending gliding turbid mountain-slopes,
Their toppling hissing foamy summits broke
Drenching upon us, and submerged our bark:
Giddily slid we deep into the trough,
Whose seething waterwalls hid all the masts
Of that great vessel which awaited us:
We struck the massy bottom with a shock,
That made our stout planks quiver; slanting up
Another beetling journeying watercliff,
Second of three great billows lightning-crown'd.
Poor Sebweku, so valiant on land,
So wise and skill'd in dealing with the many
Tribes of his continent, strove strenuously
To be as brave in my fierce water world,
Ghostly, unknown, terrific unto him:
Yet as that awful play of leaping foam
Struck us, and nearly swept us all from life,
He clutch'd my knees, crying with face of fear,
Faintly illumed by a poor phantom smile,
Like a wet timid gleam among wan clouds,
"Is this the way you go? is this the way?"
But when we had made a perilous ascent
Into the British war-brig anchor'd near,
His fresh fantastic marvelling child-soul,
So little tutor'd, ponder'd evermore
On all he saw within the war vessel;
Cannon, great coils of cable, ponderous chain,
Hammocks, and kitchen of the floating town,
Her sailors, and well-order'd soldiery;
On the interminable water world,
Strewn with dark swimming snakes, and plants; where roll
Dolphins and whales; where azure fishes fly,
And birds gleam in a momentary ray
Out of dull storm that raves among the shrouds.
Reeling to starboard and to larboard, he,
By swaying lamplight, in the midnight hour,
Lies wakeful, hearing labouring timbers groan,
Or shouted orders, piercing all the roar;
And clear struck bells, dividing hour from hour.
He, creeping up lone glimmering hatchway stairs,
Beholds a gleam from that mysterious shrine
Where, under lighted crystal, a slim needle
Trembles for ever toward the hidden pole;
Notes a bronzed mariner's strong vigilance
Revolving with both arms the straining wheel,
Beyond wet decks, wash'd over by fierce seas;
Beholds tall masts, more tall than forest kings,
Robed in broad shadowy windy sails and booms,
Circling among wan stars in rifts of cloud.
All made him welcome, and they liked him well;
But the new wonderworld inflamed his brain;
Kept his mind whirling ever night and day;
Until, when we approach'd Mauritius,
A steamer steam'd from forth the harbour mouth—
Wonder of wonders to poor Sebweku!
Fiery smoke outbursting from her funnel,
She chums the water with a rushing wheel;
Slanting and swiftly swims upon the wave:
He cries: "It is some fiend of the wild sea!"
Alas! my friend. . . . .
. . . . When we are calmly moor'd,
In a mad frenzy plunges—and is drown'd!
And yet my negroes at a later day14
Proved boldest, skilfullest of mariners.
Perilously braving mountainous ocean-waves,
And howling winds, our tight but tiny craft,
Lady Nyassa, from Mozambique flew,
Resolved to harbour in far Asia.
Mine own hands ruled the helm, my sleepless eyes
Watching the needle: often would we clutch
Fast, lest some phantom billow whirl us forth;
Hurrying, swirling, billows playing with us,
Whose foam-fangs gleam'd in night's chaotic war!
But my blithe monkey-nimble negro boys,
While our spars heaving dipp'd in hissing sea,
Climb'd undismay'd, and clinging, deftly reeved
A rope, at my bawl'd orders, through a block;
With ebony heads and frames immersed in brine,
Held their brave breaths; then with the rope between
White, shining teeth, return'd triumphantly.
When by a miracle we made the port;
Nor founder'd, leaving ne'er a living soul
To tell the tale; among tall mast-forests
In that great hazy harbour of Bombay,
None could discover, though they sought for long,
Where our wee "Lady" had bestow'd herself!
How glorious and amiable some scenes
Of gorgeous loveliness, and human joy,
That pass before mine inner eyes to-night!
For there is unsophisticated joy,
Yea, hardy virtue in rude nature's child;
And there are sins, with poignant miseries,
Our subtler, jaded brains impart to him.
Witness, the desolation and despair15
Of guileless peoples, beautiful and kind,
Basking in smiles of bounteous mother Earth,
Wrought by pale Spaniards; whom they held divine,
Descended from the crystal firmament,
In silks and flashing armour, on white wings
Of golden galleons; offering on their knees
Flowers and fruits and spices of their isle!
And you, ye murderers of Patteson!
Not poor blind islanders, but English fiends!
Beware, O ye who follow after me,
Of how ye deal with this, mine Africa!
Methinks I hear some solemn state palaver,
Held in the grand unwall'd assembling-place,
Thatch'd with bamboos and branches, when blue morn
Glows golden, while cool shadows at the doors
Of a leaf-bower'd village minish fast.
Morn lies a lake of light amid the bloom
And billowy wealth of forest foliage;
Young Sun, ascending, shines on thatch like snow,
Revealing veins of herbs, and draining them;
Glancing among high senatorial boughs
Of feathery tamarind, or mahogany;
While dews of slumber rustle rainbow rain
In sylvan, solitary silences
Of Nature's own cathedral sanctuary.
A spear is in the dusky orator's hand,
And spears are planted black athwart the day;
Dark bearded elders hearken solemnly,
Resting on logs, all polish'd from long use.
Perennial founts of eloquent, warm words
Are these untutor'd children of the sun!
Now reigns the blazing furnace of full noon:
And save for little rills that want no sleep,
Silence, before the intolerable glory,
Falls on a cowering world of beast and man.
Bird-song has waned, and even the stridulent
Cicala sleeps; a rare bee drowsily
Explores a twilit labyrinth of flowers;
Delicate blossoms dallying in warm airs,
Bowing and yielding to the velvet lover;
While heaven-blue elves with pulsing fans alight
Over a ruin of red leaves, or sail
From light to shadow, like a jubilant
Song, failing in a tenderer low minor.
Gorgeous insects of metallic gleam
Waver, and glance, and glimmer on the fronds.
Low, murmurous sound pervades all emerald aisles,
As though the floral earth and leaves were breathing.
Life teems! a myriad hidden mandibles,
Amid lush herbage, under moss and loam,
Clear away life superfluous, and death.
Gorgeous fungi here and there reveal,
Where sun can pierce, traversing shadows thrown
Athwart them from some silken spider's line,
To and fro glancing when a zephyr breathes;
Bending long grasses wheresoe'er it hangs.
And hark! the honey-bird invites to steal
Delicious honey-combs from hollow boles.
Hearken again!
A sound, how plaintive and melodious,
Swells in the green gloom! it is like one note
From a sweet vibrant lyre—a hidden bird!
Women have gone, with infants slung behind them,
Toward a spring, light pitchers gracefully
Poised on their heads by steadying of dark arms
Curl'd over; or they bruise with iron hoes
The hopeful soil; plant yams and manioc;
Pound in wood mortars these, or maize and millet;
Hem with some thorn, or fish-bone for a needle,
And fibres of a leaf; weave grassy cloths
In looms, or spin with immemorial spindle.
Some men have gone with quiver, targe, and spear,
To hunt the beast for food; some loll at ease,
Like their own gourds, luxuriously idle;
Listless and vacant dumb black animals,
Who spurn the accursèd joke of thought and toil—
They never roll the stone of Sisyphus!
No fool's ambition ever goads their lives
To rouse a restless rumour, while they roll
Into fate's mortal darkness, and to leave
A hollow murmur for a little time
In some poor space of insignificant earth!
Now Sun steals westward; and his fading light
Glows golden, while cool shadows at the doors
Of leaf-embower'd villages are long.
Burning he falls into the forest sea,
Inflames leaf-billows with purpureal fire;
Drawing down souls to caves of the under-world;
Whence in twelve hours he royal will arise
From holy nenaphars upon the river!
Fragrance and song, released from royalty
Of his fierce presence, timid lift their heads;
Grey parrots crying flutter home to roost.
Hunters return, with many a gay halloo,
And whoOp light-hearted, bearing various game,
About whose way hilarious women throng,
Calling them by pet names, and fondling them,
Prattling, intent to hear of all the sport.
Boys in gourd bowls bring frothy plantain wine
From cool leaf-cellars in low boughs of trees,
Presenting it with clapping of their hands:
Anon there smokes a savoury repast,
Viands of venison, nuts, and season'd yams.
Dancing and singing under tender stars,
In serene purple air! a rising moon
Charming all harshness from the fuming flame
Of resinous torch, and lowlier village fires,
Mild as evanishing fireflies in the shade!
A night of love for lovely youths and girls,
Of revelry, and wine and flute playing,
Psaltery, reed, marimba, or cithern;
Rude sires of more harmonious instruments,
String' d with a root, a snake-skin strain'd athwart—
One sang me a small song about the dance.
The dance! the dance!
Maidens advance
Your undulating charm!
A line deploys
Of gentle boys,
Waving the light arm,
Bronze alive and warm;
Reedflute and drum
Sound as they come,
Under your eyelight warm!
Many a boy,
A dancing joy,
Many a mellow maid,
With fireflies in the shade,
Mingle and glide,
Appear and hide,
Here in a fairy glade:
Ebb and flow
To a music low,
Viol, and flute and lyre,
As melody mounts higher:
With a merry will,
They touch and thrill.
Beautiful limbs of fire!
Red berries, shells,
Over bosom-dells.
And girdles of light grass,
May never hide
The youthful pride
Of beauty, ere it pass:
Yet, ah! sweet boy and lass,
Refrain, retire!
Love is a fire!
Night will pass!
I came to pleasant places on my way!
Lawns of deep verdure by a silvern water;
Wind-waved savannahs flush'd with floral bloom,
Clouded with saffron or cerulean flowers,
And little silken blossoms of pure snow,
Dying in dews of every dying eve,
Living in all revivals of the morn.
Here women singing reap the golden grain,
Or bind in sheaves; here flourish cotton-fleece,
Rice, tendrill'd peas, and pulse, and sugar-cane;
While mottled kine, knee-deep in flowering grasses,
At milking time low to their prison'd heifers,
And merry kidlings frisk at bower'd doors.
The men under some fig's rich canopy
Sit weaving limber baskets, or a weir,
And fishing-creel.
Slight palisades preserve
Dark jasper-jewell'd women, as they fill
Their pitchers in the river, from the foul
Scaled alligators that abound below,
Watchfully lurking underneath wan water;
Dim treacherous shadows, motionless like stone,
Monsters who linger from primæval time,
Ere man appear'd to rule—
Nay, some still pay them tribute of a prayer;
Offer their very little ones to soothe
And sate bestial malign divinities!
These have their priest, temple, and sacrifice,
Or priestess, with observances impure:
So have green serpents, tongued with flickering fire,
Whose stealthy glide flames out in torturing hells. . .
. . Are these dark aberrations of the soul
Terrible legacies bequeathed to men
By some forefather of Egyptian race,
Who bore the ritual of his ancient realm
To these far wilds of Ethiopia?—
Bringing his cast of feature, and the modes
Of intricate hairbraids involved with bark;
Manners of tilling earth and harvesting,
Spindles, and ways of weaving warp with weft.—
Or was it some primæval ancestor,
Common to all, whom so the Lord made wise,
And whom in turn the Enemy beguiled?
But still, upon broad shoulders of strong men,
A sacred ark is borne at the full moon
Among dark faces of adoring crowds,
Moonsilver'd, lit from lamps of gourd or melon,
Amid glad music and loud clapping hands;
Even as in Saïs, at the Feast of Lamps,
Far away in dim hollows of the past!
Among rare visions of celestial glory,
And all responsive splendours upon Earth,
In such a scene as these, in such a river,
Behold! a maiden in her earliest prime
Bound to a stake, bare-limb'd upon a bank,
The ripple washing over her slim ankles,
And lovely swaying lilies kissing them.
She horror-frozen waits the horrid doom . .
. . A hideous head protrudes from forth the shoal:
There is a whirl of monstrous dragon-tail . .
. . Andromeda's red blood afflicts the river;
Whom no fair wingèd Perseus may save!
I travell'd over many lakes and rivers,
In floating trees men hollow'd with an adze
For a canoe, my rowers with wild song
Paddling or poling, in accordant time
Of oar and voice, chanting some ancient stave
Of river-song in tones Gregorian,
Solemn and strange, ancient as Pharaoh!
How wonderful it was to float along the river!
Dreamily hearing water plash and gurgle
From my canoe's advancing sides and oars,
Washing among green rushes of the shore!
Wherein wing'd warblers, plumed in spousal hues
Of green, gold, scarlet, sable, white and azure,
Flash'd, thrill'd, and warbled; here in the Summerland,
Now in the latest of two fairy summers,
When there is snow in England—ah! and bells;
With lovelier light and warmth of home and heart!
Hark! how they sing to soft mates in nests woven
Of green flags, nimble bills have sown with webs;
While, sunning them, they preen their little wings,
Showering drops that trickle down the stems!
Earlier rains have fallen; a fresh air
Fans clear and lucid now in morning hours;
Vivid green pennons of tall rushes wave
Athwart blue light, with dense papyrus reed,
Wherein soft brown gazelles rustle and play
'Neath hollyhock, brown bulrush, and flagflowers.
A mighiy river horse
Protrudes a shining snout; trumpets aloud,
Blowing out spurts of water like a whale.
"Pula, pula," calls the "Son-in-law of God;"16
While ever and anon an ebony bird
Rouses from his dim dreaming on the sand,
And screaming harshly, wakes a long wild cry
From some fish-eagle, widening vast brown wings.
In shoals grave marabouts, with red flamingoes,
Wade; and behold! yon bird on floating lotus
Leaves walks among the holy white lilies,
Dipping a glossy fold below the ripple.
A snowy ibis, a slim demoiselle,
A tall grey heron, an egret of white plume;
These, and the like, stand fairy sentinels,
With wavering bright image down below,
Silent before a twilit emerald
Of river margin, radiant in bloom.
Yellow milola, blue convolvulus,
Whose vases seem to overflow with heaven,
These all are haunts of lustrous dragon-fly;
Gorgeous velvet moth, sipping the sweet;
Of dappled bees, gold-dusted; butterflies,
Wing'd like the train of Juno's heavenly bird.
Onward we glide, and twine meandering
On a moss-colour'd water, till the gale
Believes my merry rowers; we expand
A little sail, filling with soft sweet air,
Like some soft bird's white bosom heaved with song,
White as a foam of waterfalls; we glide
Merrily among wave-enchanted flowers,
Glossily heaving while we gently pass;
Or splendid twinkling trees, immersed in light,
From shadowy bosoms offering fruits of Eden;
Breathing a perfume as of Paradise
From their soft islands; islands of the blest,
Bower'd to the marge, re-echo'd in the water;
With many a fleecy cloudlet sailing slow.
Small richly armour'd quaint iguanas bask
On every sunniest bough; while startled eyes
Of glorious lithe beasts flash for a moment
Out of the solemn sylvan opaline
Of hoary forest boles, and swiftly vanish:
Little agamas nod their orange heads;
A lovely praying mantis, green as leaves,
Rests on green leaves; and green cameleons.
We wind along; the waters rise from rain;
Blue hazy hills arise, saluting us.
Often, when we have doubled some fair cape,
With thud and plash fall fragments of rich loam;
And as we round low river promontories,
Crocodiles basking upon yellow sand,
With dull green eyes, and huge obscene fang'd jaws,
Wake startled; gliding plunge into the flood;
Where many a delicate-tinted pelican
Stores silver fishes in his hanging pouch.
Wandering devious, many-mooded rivers
Mazily saunter, with a floating flower,
Or leaf, or bubble on their bosom borne;
With labyrinthine silver in the blue;
Indolent dimpling playful light and shadow;
Now washing swiftly round about the roots
Of guava, mango, fountainous cocoa-palm,
Or palm that, veil'd in climbing green llianas,
High over all the verdure lifts a spire.
Among blithe rapids my dark boatmen wade,
Merrily pushing; while at waterfalls,
Pendent in green woods among roseate rocks,
Pendent, like plumes of birds of paradise,
They carry our frail bark upon their shoulders.
Sunset arrives: a stilly-flowing flood
Glows, like blent molten metals brilliant,
Dark and light green, crimson, purple and gold,
Repeating heaven; as though yon gleaming beetles,
Swaying among the verdure, were afloat,
One solid army of them, mail'd in glory.
I enter equatorial lakes, unknown
To any European eyes before:
Ngami, Bemba, Moero, Nyassa;
Slumbering in grand enfolding arms
Of old volcanic mountain, tempest-crown'd!
Profound and lonely children of the waters,
Whom gorgeous-vestured giant forms o'erfrown,
Bastion, tower, inviolate precipice,
Burying them from all-beholding Sun
In sullen shadow, many hours a year.
Ngami! earliest lake mine eyes beheld;
On whose fair shores of old exultantly
I stood, with my dear little ones and her!
This inland sea, this noble Tanganika,
Where Burton came with Speke, whom England mourns,
Hath all his guardian mountains foliaged
From wave to heaven; magnificently robed
In rich luxuriant foliage of Mvulé,
And other alien blossoming tall trees,
Bauhinia, tamarind, teak, and sycomore,
Enfolding purple torrent-cloven ravines.
While otherwhere long sheeny rapier blades
Of green matete cane adorn the marge,
With mangroves, whose bare roots affect the fen.
One who rows softly, rounding promontories,
When these high hills are overarch'd with azure,
Dipping his paddle in a light blue water,
Beholds embower'd in sweet shingly coves
Palm-nestled, hive-like huts and villages,
Whose dwellers ply their busy crafts on shore,
While fishing gear and boats adorn the strand . . .
. . And what if this great water gender Nile?17
For I have seen a Northward drift of boughs,
With other floating waifs; while Arabs tell
How from far Northern limits of the lake
A river floweth North—perchance to where
Baker, with his heroic consort, came? . .
. . Where issueth else the mighty water forth?
18 Mosi-oa-tunya.
Smooth river water holdeth softly furl'd
Thee, hoarded wonder of the wondrous world!
Ere thy tempestuous cataracts are hurl'd,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Twenty miles away thy sound
Travels from the gulf profound
Of thine earth-convulsing bound,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Five great cloudy columns rise,
To uphold the rolling skies:
Morning clothes with rainbow dyes
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Awful phantoms in the moon
Rise to thy tremendous tune:
When the fiery evening falls,
Hell sulphureous appalls,
While thy blazing thunder calls,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
The huge Mowana, and the Mohonono,
Like silvery cedar-trees on Lebanon,
Wave, with light palms, upon the pleasant isles
And shores, ere Leeambayee vanishes,
As though annihilate in his proud career:
Motsouri-cypress, yielding scarlet fruit;
All noblest equatorial trees adorn
His mile-wide water, clear as a clear day,
Gliding like lightning into the abyss.
Clear a moment, ere thou blanch
Into a mile-wide avalanche,
Snowfall lapsing twice the height
Of Niagara in his might!
Born of thy resounding day,
Myriad meteors o'er thee play:
There is an evergreen dark grove,
Guarded by thine own awful love:
Her inner melancholy no sun may move,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Tall ghostly forms of sounding cloud
Clothe her in a rainbow shroud;
No bird of hers carols aloud,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Down the rock's tremendous face,
Foam-rills, tremulous like lace,
Flow from roots that grasp the place,
To where thy vaporous cauldrons hiss;
But ere they may attain to this,
Smoke roaring, whirl'd from the abyss,
Licks them off precipitous stone,
High into a cloudy zone,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Water and wind jamm'd in a chasm profound,
Tortured, pent-up, and madden'd, with strong sound
War in world-ruining chaos, fierce rebounding;
A wild tumultuous rumour, earth and heaven confounding.
After, the river rushes, a long green
Serpent, convolved about dark promontories
Of sternest basalt, in the unfathomable
Chasm to and fro, a swift fork'd lightning-flash;
But all the promontories are crown'd with trees,
Gorgeous blooming herbage and tall flowers.
On a green island, hanging o'er the flood,
Even where it falleth, lovely flowers are wooed,
And with eternal youth imbued,
By a lapse of gentle rain
From the cataract's hurricane:
Love celestial in showers
Falls from devastating powers!
Under the foam-bow and the cloud,
Here where thunders peal aloud,
Human souls with trembling bow'd,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
Cruel lords of all the isles,
Though a heavenly rainbow smiles,
Only feel bewildering annihilating terror;
Offer human lives to thee in blind, bewilder'd error.
Love abideth still, sublime
O'er the roar and whirl of Time,
Foam-bow of a sunnier clime,
Mosi-oa-tunya!
But I behold there, on high poles exposed,
White skulls of strangers, whom the savage hordes
Of river-pirates most inhumanly
Slew: these barbarians the Makololo,
Sebituane, routed and destroy'd;
Planting his own Bechuana speech abroad
Among the nations; opening thereby
A way wherein our Sacred Oracles
May march triumphant, blessing all the land;
Since Moffat arduously render'd them
Into a heretofore unletter'd tongue.
By moonlight, or by starlight, when we pause
Upon the river's bosom, ah! how fair!
Shadowy fruits and flowers in elf-light hanging;
Plaintive low voices floating tenderly.
One waking here, in slumber borne from far,
Would deem he had died in sleep, and was in
heaven.
Alas! all fair dreams fade, and this would fade!
Joy only masketh the wan face of woe.
For not alone here fever's mortal breath
Chills all exultant ardours of the brave;
Slackens bent bows of young impetuous lives,
Baffling the swift-wing'd arrows of their aim;
Veils youthful eyes in languorous impotence,
So that they love no more fair life than death.
But there is worse than treacherous-soul'd Miasma,
Lurking for prey, close-mask'd in orient glory,
Enveloping a man with subtle folds
Of dull impalpable mortality.
Sin is a deadlier malady than all!
These flowers are only strewn upon a corpse.
Man has made Earth a hissing and a scorn
Among the constellated worlds of light!
And here the plague-spot is the loathliest.
I have come to pleasant places on my way:
Angels beholding might be lured from heaven!
And in the course of my long wandering
I have return'd once more to visit them.
Alas! how changed!
. . Bowery villages roll volumed clouds
Of fiery smoke, staining the limpid light;
Rich harvests, charr'd, or trampled, or ungarner'd
Idly luxuriant, meet the mournful eye.
While, even beside a fair golden array
Of bounteous corn, a few starved boys and women,
Gaunt as yon skeletons around them strewn,
Crawl; listless, hopeless famine in their eyes;
All that were dear, slain, tortured, or expell'd
By arm'd assaults of the fierce slave-driver.
And ah! these skeletons! the tales they tell!
Beside fair river-banks, beside wreck'd huts,
Under green trees, under red rocks, in caves,
Ghastly anatomies, in attitudes
Of mortal anguish, writhed, and curl'd, and twisted,
Mutually clasp'd in transports of despair!
In one closed cabin, when mine eyes conform
To its faint twilight, on a rude raised bed
Appear two skeletons in mouldering weeds;
The head of one fallen from its wooden pillow;
And piteous between them a small form
Of a starved child, nestled by sire and mother.
The dead, and living wounded, and the babes,
Are flung by those contemptuous conquerors
To feed loathsome hyenas, that assemble
Through lurid smoke of sunset, gaunt and grey;
With obscene screaming vultures, heavily
Wheeling, or swooping; rending the live prey.
One infant darling, weeping, wilder'd, still
Solicits the cold breast of a dead mother!
I have seen Lualaba's mighty rolling water
Red with the blood of a blithe innocent people,
Who, unforeboding slant-eyed treachery,
Chaffer'd, and bought and sold, as was their wont,
In a populous fair by the worn river-marge.
And there was melody of mandolin,
And dulcet flute; with dancing, and warm love
Of gay young lovers, under broad brown eaves,
Sheltering from a hot ascending day:
Where clear young laughter blent deliciously
With falling notes of bowery turtle-doves,
Mantled in hues of tender summer cloud.
Hearken!—a rnsh! a trample of arm'd men!
A sudden deafening crash of musketry!
Hundreds of blithe love-dreaming youths and maidens,
Bathed in their own life-blood, and one another's,
Fall, with one last death-quivering embrace:
While women in rude violating arms
Of strangers struggle; and the flower of men
Strain their necks impotent in yokes of iron,
Grappled around them by their insolent foes.
Hundreds in panic blind—man, woman, child—
Plunge among waters of deep Lualaba;
Whose drowning bodies the swift current hurries;
These, maim'd swollen corpses, drifting far away,
Hideously-croaking famish'd alligators
Fight for portentous; lashing furious trains,
Pulling asunder human trunks and limbs!
But follow ye the stolen journeying slave!
Behold her toiling shackled, starved, and goaded
Upon her weary way through wild and wood,
Under the sunblaze; till her bleeding feet
Refuse their office; till she faints and falls!
Whom the tormentors, with a curse and jeer,
Torture to sense of cruel life once more:
Two burdens doth she carry; one, her babe:
She cannot bear them both; they snatch the babe
From her, for all the wailing and wrung hands;
Tossing it crush'd upon a mossy stone.
They goad her on; full blinding tears have darken'd
All the parch'd earth; she cannot stumble far—
Now shouts arise to kill her—it is done!
Christ saith to Satan: "Hold! the child shall sleep!"