34
*****
In the sunny Gaudaloupe
A dark hull'd vessel lay—
With a crew who noted never
The night-fall or the day.
The blossom of the orange
Waved white by every stream,
And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird,
Were in the warm sun-beam.
And the sky was bright as ever,
And the moonlight slipt as well,
On the palm-trees by the hill-side,
And the streamlet of the dell.
And the glances of the Creole
Were still as archly deep,
And her smiles as full as ever
Of passion and of sleep.
But vain were bird and blossom,
The green earth and the sky,
And the smile of the human faces,
To the ever darken'd eye;
For, amidst a word of beauty,
The slaver went abroad,
With his ghastly visage written
By the awful curse of God!
