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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420797" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Slave Ships</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'ALL ready?' cried the captain;<br>'Ay, ay!' the seamen said;<br>'Heave up the worthless lubbers, —<br>The dying and the dead.'<br>Up from the slave-ship's prison<br>Fierce, bearded heads were thrust<br>'Now let the sharks look to it,—<br>Toss up the dead ones first!'<br>Corpse after corpse came.up, —<br>Death had been busy there;<br>Where every blow is mercy,<br>Why should the spoiler spare?<br>Corpse after corpse they cast<br>Sullenly from the ship,<br>Yet bloody with the traces<br>Of fetter-link and whip.<br>Gloomily stood the captain,<br>With his arms upon his breast,<br>With his cold brow sternly knotted,<br>And his iron lip compressed.<br>'Are all the dead dogs over?'<br>Growled through that matted lip;<br>'The blind ones are no better,<br>Let's lighten the good ship.'<br>Hark! from the ship's dark bosom,<br>The very sounds of hell!<br>The ringing clank of iron,<br>The maniac's short, sharp yell!<br>The hoarse, low curse, throat-stified;<br>The starving infant's moan,<br>The horror of a breaking heart<br>Poured through a mother's groan.<br>Up from that loathsome prison<br>The stricken blind ones came:<br>Below, had all been darkness,<br>Above, was still the same.<br>Yet the holy breath of heaven<br>Was sweetly breathing there,<br>And the heated brow of fever<br>Cooled in the soft sea air.<br>'Overboard with them, shipmates!'<br>Cutlass and dirk were plied;<br>Fettered and blind, one after one,<br>Plunged down the vessel's side.<br>The sabre smote above,.<br>Beneath, the lean shark lay,<br>Waiting with wide and bloody jaw<br>His quick and human prey.<br>God of the earth! what cries<br>Rang upward unto thee?<br>Voices of agony and blood,<br>From ship-deck and from sea.<br>The last dull plunge was heard,<br>The last wave caught its stain,<br>And the unsated shark looked up<br>For human hearts in vain.<br>. . . . . . . .<br>Red glowed the western waters,<br>The setting sun was there,<br>Scattering alike on wave and cloud<br>His fiery mesh of hair.<br>Amidst a group in blindness,<br>A solitary eye<br>Gazed, from the burdened slaver's deck,<br>Into that burning sky.<br>' A storm,' spoke out the gazer,<br>'Is gathering and at hand;<br>Curse on't, I'd give my other eye<br>For one firm rood of land.'<br>And then he laughed, but only<br>His echoed laugh replied,<br>For the blinded and the suffering<br>Alone were at his side.<br>Night settled on the waters,<br>And on a stormy heaven,<br>While fiercely on that lone ship's track<br>The thunder-gust was driven.<br>'A sail! — thank God, a sail!'<br>And as the helmsman spoke,<br>Up through the stormy murmur<br>A shout of gladness broke.<br>Down came the stranger vessel,<br>Unheeding on her way,<br>So near that on the slaver's deck<br>Fell off her driven spray.<br>' Ho! for the love of mercy,<br>We're perishing and blind!'<br>A wail of utter agony<br>Came back upon the wind:<br>' Help us! for we are stricken<br>With blindness every one;<br>Ten days we've floated fearfully,<br>Unnoting star or sun.<br>Our ship's the slaver Leon, —<br>We're but a score on board;<br>Our slaves are all gone over, —<br>Help, for the love of God!'<br>On livid brows of agony<br>The broad red lightning shone;<br>But the roar of wind and thunder<br>Stifled the answering groan;<br>Wailed from the broken waters<br>A last despairing cry,<br>As, kindling in the stormy light,<br>The stranger ship went by.<br>. . . . . . . .<br>In the sunny Guadaloupe<br>A dark-hulled vessel lay,<br>With a crew who noted never<br>The nightfall or the day.<br>The blossom of the orange<br>Was white by every stream,<br>And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird<br>Were in the warm sunbeam.<br>And the sky was bright as ever,<br>And the moonlight slept as well,<br>On the palm-trees by the hillside,<br>And the streamlet of the dell:<br>And the glances of the Creole<br>Were still as archly deep,<br>And her smiles as full as ever<br>Of passion and of sleep.<br>But vain were bird and blossom,<br>The green earth and the sky,<br>And the smile of human faces,<br>To the slaver's darkened eye;<br>At the breaking of the morning,<br>At the star-lit evening time,<br>O'er a world of light and beauty<br>Fell the blackness of his crime.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420797" data-title="The Slave Ships de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="'ALL ready?' cried the captain;
'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 fir..."></div>
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