And inland waste of rock and wood,
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
Rose, mellowed through the silvergleam,
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 cecropia's silver rind
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 cucullo played!
Yes, lovely was thine 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 the immortal mind,
One sterner passion of his kind,
Which even fetters could not kill, -
The savage hope, to deal, erelong,
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 rang,

Around, beneath, above; The wild beast from his cavern sprang, 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 unrequited 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,

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!
Where then was he whose fiery zeal
Had taught the trampled heart to feel,
Until despair itself grew strong,
Andvengeance fed its torch from wrong?
Now, when the thunderbolt is speed-
ing:

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,

Has 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 door, 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 his thousand war-fields striven,

And gloried in his ghastly shame?-
Kneeling amidst his brother's 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!

"Ha! stand or die!" The white man's

eye

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 seaward 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!"-Hespoke, 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.

59

Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb,
Beneath Besançon's alien sky,
Dark Haytien! for the time shall

come,

Yea, even now is nigh,

When, everywhere, 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! Far 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: - 33

Ay, ay " the seamen said; "Heave up the worthless lubbers, The dying and the dead." Up from the slave-ship's prison

Fierce, bearded heads were thrust: "Now let the sharks look to it,

Toss up the dead ones first!"

Corpse after corpse came up, —
Death had been busy there;
Where every blow is mercy,

Why should the spoiler spare?
Corpse after corpse they cast
Sullenly from the ship,
Yet bloody with the traces
Of fetter-link and whip.

Gloomily stood the captain,

With his arms upon his breast, With his cold brow sternly knotted, And his iron lip compressed. "Are all the dead dogs over?"

Growled through that matted lip,"The blind ones are no better,

Let's lighten the good ship."

Hark! from the ship's dark bosom,
The very sounds of hell!
The ringing clank of iron,

The maniac's short, sharp yell! The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled, The starving infant's moan, — The horror of a breaking heart

Poured through a mother's groan.

Up from that loathsome prison
The stricken blind ones came :
Below, had all been darkness,

Above, was still the same.
Yet the holy breath of heaven

Was sweetly breathing there, And the heated brow of fever

Cooled in the soft sea air.

"Overboard with them, shipmates!" Cutlass and dirk were piied; Fettered and blind, one after one, Plunged down the vessel's side. The sabre smote above,

Beneath, the lean shark lay,
Waiting with wide and bloody jaw
His quick and human prey.

God of the earth! what cries
Rang upward unto thee?
Voices of agony and blood,

From ship deck and from sea.
The last dull plunge was heard,
The last wave caught its stain,
And the unsated shark looked up
For human hearts in vain.

Night settled on the waters,

And on a stormy heaven,

While fiercely on that lone ship's track
The thunder-gust was driven.
"A sail !— thank God, a sail !”
And as the helmsman spoke,
Up through the stormy murmur
A shout of gladness broke.

Down came the stranger vessel,
Unheeding on her way,

So near, that on the slaver's deck
Fell off her driven spray.
"Ho! for the love of mercy, -
We're perishing and blind!"
A wail of utter agony

Came back upon the wind:

Help us! for we are stricken With blindness every one; Ten days we've floated fearfully, Unnoting star or sun.

Our ship's the slaver Leon, We've but a score on board, Our slaves are all gone over, Help, - for the love of God !" On livid brows of agony

The broad red lightning shone, But the roar of wind and thunder Stifled the answering groan Wailed from the broken waters A last despairing cry, As, kindling in the stormy light, The stranger ship went by.