Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question In the United States/Toussaint L'Ouverture
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.
[Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain of Hayti, was a slave on the plantation of M. Bayon de Libertas. When the general rising of the negroes took place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to join them, until he had aided M. Bayon and his family to escape to Baltimore. The white man had discovered in Toussaint many notable qualities, and had instructed him in some of the first branches of education; and the preservation of his life was owing to the negro's gratitude for his kindness.
In 1797, Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed, by the French Government, General-in-chief of the armies of St. Domingo, and as such, signed the Convention with General Maitland, for the evacuation of the island by the British. From this period until 1801, the island, under the government of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, and prosperous. The miserable attempt of Napoleon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, although it failed of its intended object, proved fatal to the Negro chieftain. Treacherously seized by Leclerc, he was hurried on board a vessel by night, and conveyed to France, where he was confined in a cold subterranean dungeon, at Besancon, where, in April, 1803, he died. The treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in the murder of the Duke d'Enghein. It was the remark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West India islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could not boast of a single name which deserves comparison with that of Toussaint L'Ouverture.]
The moon was up. One general smile
Was resting on the Indian isle—
Mild—pure—ethereal; rock and wood;
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam,
Soft as the landscape of a dream:
All motionless and dewy wet,
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met:
The myrtle with its snowy bloom,
Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom—
The white crecopia's silver rhind
Relieved by deeper green behind—
The orange with its fruit of gold,—
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold,—
The passion-flower, with symbol holy,
Twining its tendrils long and lowly,—
The rhexias dark, and cassia tall,
And, proudly rising over all,
The kingly palm's imperial stem,
Crowned with its leafy diadem,—
Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade,
The fiery-winged cucollo played!
Yes—lovely was thin aspect, then,
Fair island of the Western Sea!—
Lavish of beauty, even when
Thy brutes were happier than thy men,
For they, at least, were free!
Regardless of thy glorious clime,
Unmindful of thy soil of flowers,
The toiling negro sighed, that Time
No faster sped his hours.
For, by the dewy moonlight still,
He fed the weary-turning mill,
Or bent him in the chill morass,
To pluck the long and tangled grass,
And hear above his scar-worn back
The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack;—
While in his heart one evil thought
In solitary madness wrought,—
One baleful fire surviving still,
The quenching of th' immortal mind—
One sterner passion of his kind,
Which even fetters could not kill,—
The savage hope, to deal, ere long,
A vengeance bitterer than his wrong!
Hark to that cry!—long, loud and shrill,
From field and forest, rock and hill,
Thrilling and horrible it rung,
Around, beneath, above;—
The wild beast from his cavern sprung—
The wild bird from her grove!
Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony
Were mingled in that midnight cry;
But, like the lion's growl of wrath,
When falls that hunter in his path,
Whose barbed arrow, deeply set,
Is rankling in his bosom yet,
It told of hate, full, deep and strong,—
Of vengeance kindling out of wrong;
It was as if the crimes of years—
The agony—the toil—the tears—
The shame and hate, which liken well
Earth's garden to the nether hell,
Had found in Nature's self a tongue,
On which the gathered horror hung;
As if from cliff, and stream, and glen,
Burst, on the startled ears of men,
That voice which rises unto God—
Solemn and stern—the cry of blood!
It ceased—and all was still once more,
Save ocean chafing on his shore—
The sighing of the wind between
The broad banana's leaves of green—
Or, bough by restless plumage shook—
Or, distant brawl of mountain brook.
Brief was the silence. Once again
Pealed to the skies that frantic yell—
Glowed on the heavens a fiery stain,
And flashes rose and fell;
And, painted on the blood-red sky,
Dark, naked arms were tossed on high;
And, round the white man's lordly hall,
Trode, fierce and free, the brute he made,
And those who crept along the wall,
And answered to his lightest call
With more than spaniel dread.
The creatures of his lawless beck
Were trampling on his very neck!
And, on the night-air, wild and clear,
Rose woman's shriek of more than fear;
For bloodied arms were round her thrown,
And dark cheeks pressed against her own!
Then, injured Afric, for the shame
Of thy own daughters, vengeance came
Full on the scornful hearts of those,
Who mocked thee in thy nameless woes,
And to thy hapless children gave
One choice—pollution, or the grave!
Dark-browed Toussaint!—the storm had risen
Obedient to his master-call—
The Negro's mind had burst its prison—
His hand its iron thrall!
Yet where was he, whose fiery zeal
First taught the trampled heart to feel,
Until despair itself grew strong,
And vengeance fed its torch from wrong?
Now—when the thunder-bolt is speeding—
Now—when oppression's heart is bleeding—
Now—when the latent curse of Time
Is raining down in fire and blood—
That curse, which through long years of crime,
Had gathered, drop by drop, its flood:
Why strikes he not the foremost one,
Where Murder's sternest deeds are done?
He stood the aged palms beneath,
That shadowed o'er his humble doer,
Listening, with half-suspended breath,
To the wild sounds of fear and death—
—Toussaint l'Ouverture!
What marvel that his heart beat high!
The blow for freedom had been given;
And blood had answered to the cry
Which earth sent up to heaven!
What marvel, that a fierce delight
Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night,
As groan, and shout, and bursting flame,
Told where the midnight tempest came;
With blood and fire along its van,
And death behind!—he was a MAN!
Yes—dark-souled chieftain!—if the light
Of mild Religion's heavenly ray
Unveiled not to thy mental sight
The lowlier and the purer way,
In which the Holy Sufferer trod,
Meekly amidst the sons of crime,—
That calm reliance upon God
For justice, in his own good time,—
That gentleness, to which belongs
Forgiveness for its many wrongs;
Even as the primal martyr, kneeling
For mercy on the evil-dealing,—
Let not the favored white man name
Thy stern appeal, with words of blame.
Has he not, with the light of heaven
Broadly around him, made the same—
Yea,—on a thousand war-fields striven,
And gloried in his open shame
Kneeling amidst his brothers' blood,
To offer mockery unto God,
As if the High and Holy One
Could smile on deeds of murder done!—
As if a human sacrifice
Were purer in His holy eyes,
Though offered up by Christian hands,
Than the foul rites of Pagan lands!
*****Sternly, amidst his household band,
His carbine grasped within his hand,
The white man stood, prepared and still,
Waiting the shock of maddened men,
Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when
The horn winds through their caverned hill.
And one was weeping in his sight,—
The fairest flower of all the isle,—
The bride who seemed but yesternight
The image of a smile.
And, clinging to her trembling knee,
Looked up the form of infancy,
With tearful glance in either face,
The secret of its fear to trace.
'Ha—stand, or die!' The white man's eye
His steady musket gleamed along,
As a tall Negro hastened nigh,
With fearless step and strong.
'What ho, Toussaint!' A moment more,
His shadow crossed the lighted floor.
'Away,' he shouted; 'fly with me,—
The white man's bark is on the sea;—
Her sails must catch the landward wind,
For sudden vengeance sweeps behind.
Our brethren from their graves have spoken,
The yoke is spurned—the chain is broken;
On all the hills our fires are glowing—
Through all the vales red blood is flowing!
No more the mocking White shall rest
His foot upon the Negro's breast;—
No more, at morn or eve, shall drip
The warm blood from the driver's whip:—
Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn
For all the wrongs his race have borne,—
Though for each drop of Negro blood,
The white man's veins shall pour a flood;
Not all alone the sense of ill
Around his heart is lingering still,
Nor deeper can the white man feel
The generous warmth of grateful zeal.
Friends of the Negro! fly with me—
The path is open to the sea:
Away, for life!'—He spoke, and pressed
The young child to his manly breast,
As, headlong, through the cracking cane,
Down swept the dark insurgent train—
Drunken and grim—with shout and yell
Howled through the dark, like sounds from hell!
Far out, in peace, the white man's sail
Swayed free before the sunrise gale.
Cloud-like that island hung afar,
Along the bright horizon's verge,
O'er which the curse of servile war
Rolled its red torrent, surge on surge.
And he—the Negro champion—where
In the fierce tumult, struggled he?
Go trace him by the fiery glare
Of dwellings in the midnight air—
The yells of triumph and despair—
The streams that crimson to the sea!
Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb,[1]
Beneath Besancon's alien sky,
Dark Haytian!—for the time shall come,
Yea, even now is nigh —
When, every where, thy name shall be
Redeemed from color's infamy;
And men shall learn to speak of thee,
As one of earth's great spirits, born
In servitude, and nursed in scorn,
Casting aside the weary weight
And fetters of its low estate,
In that strong majesty of soul,
Which knows no color, tongue or clime—
Which still hath spurned the base control
Of tyrants through all time!
For other hands than mine may wreath
The laurel round thy brow of death,
And speak thy praise, as one whose word
A thousand fiery spirits stirred,—
Who crushed his foeman as a worm—
Whose step on human hearts fell firm:—
Be mine the better task to find
A tribute for thy lofty mind,
Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone
Some milder virtues all thine own,—
Some gleams of feeling pure and warm,
Like sunshine on a sky of storm,—
Proofs that the Negro's heart retains
Some nobleness amidst its chains,—
That kindness to the wronged is never
Without its excellent reward,—
Holy to human-kind, and ever
Acceptable to God.
- ↑ The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint l'Ouverture, during his confinement in France.
'Toussaint!—thou most unhappy man of men!
Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough
Within thy hearing, or thou liest now
Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den;—
Oh, miserable chieftain!—where and when
Wilt thou find patience?—Yet, die not; do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:
Though fallen thyself never to rise again,
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,—
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee: thou hast great allies.
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.'