Away from my threshold, thwarted disillusioned truth
Of saddened dreams . . . Away false cup of youth.
’Tis farewell to you, young lovely form
Farewell for e’er . . . In peace I would grow old
In peace await the passing of life’s storm
When another vision will moist my lips grown cold,
From out an agate goblet of black wine
With the mystic ferment of forgetfulness divine.
SONGS OF A SLAVE
On a crag at dusk I am standing, while below me fumes and roars
Crashing, screeching, foaming tempest of the crater’s endless stores.
Like a bird who vainly flutters, seeking rocks on which to pause,
Thus my eyes are sadly peering through the wat’ry hazy gauze.
In that maze that darkly stretches, in the boundless distant blue,
While the whirlpools and cyclones fume and boil like a witches brew.
Here I stand and look beyond me. Slavery there holds my land
I look forward and before me maddened tempest holds command.
Angered hurricane approaches . . Rising winds play through my hair,
E’en the clanging of my shackles weakens in the tempest’s blare.
But I gladly raise the shackles, while the rising tempest shrieks,
And like to a maiden’s kisses, to the winds I turn my cheeks.
Welcome tempests. Your appearance promises deliverance.
in your rumbling I can fathom liberty’s first resonance.
Suddenly my tired vision seems to fill with gleaming light,
And I feel my temples burning with a rising fiery might.
As if from my burdened bosom, dreams rise to my trembling lips
And I feel my soul arising on the wings of fancy’s whips.
Something seems to flicker, quiver, to arise beyond the clouds,
As if midst the pains of labor, a new born day rose through the shrouds,
in a cloak of crimson sunset now appears the angered sea
As if all its churning waters turned to blood, engulfing me.
No, it was no mere illusion, figment of some feverish dreams
I am certain of the coming of a morning star of better schemes.
That a large part of this vision will be filled in course of time,
Though I will not be so blessed, as to shake this yoke of mine.
And my greyish head will slumber in the slave’s unhonored soil,
Slavish hands with earth will cover, these old chains of endless toil
But you younger friends, before you end your life’s uncertain course
You’ll alight with feet unshackled yon, on freedom’s sunny shores.
99
