Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/57

This page needs to be proofread.

45

His children, sprung alike from sloth and vice, Are born his slaves, and loved at market price : Has he 2L soul ? — With his departing breath, A form shall hail him at the gates of death, The spectre Conscience, — shrieking through the gloom, __LMan, we shall meet again beyond the tomb.'

O Africa ! amidst thy children's woes. Did earth and heaven conspire to aid thy foes ? No, thou hadst vengeance— From thy northern

shores Sallied the lawless corsairs of the Moors, And back on Europe's guilty nations hurl'd Thy wrongs and sufferings in the sister world : Deep in thy dungeons Christians clank'd their chains, Or toil'd and perish'd on thy parching plains.

But where thine offspring crouch'dbeneath the yoke, In heavier peals the avenging thunder broke.

�� �