Anti-slavery poems : songs of labor and reform / by John Greenleaf Whittier [electronic text]

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 sweetest flower of all the isle, The bride who seemed but yesternight Love's fair embodied 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 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 Tonssaint 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, 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 wreathe 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,1 1.1 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 amid its chains, — That kindness to the wronged is never Without its excellent reward, Holy to human-kind and ever Acceptable to God.

Notes

• 1 1.1

  Note 1, page 18. 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; O miserable chieftain! — where and whenWilt 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."