Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/114

92 Alas! how changed! Bowery villages roll volumed clouds Of fiery smoke, staining the limpid light; Rich harvests, charr'd, or trampled, or ungarner'd Idly luxuriant, meet the mournful eye. While, even beside a fair golden array Of bounteous corn, a few starved boys and women, Gaunt as yon skeletons around them strewn, Crawl; listless, hopeless famine in their eyes; All that were dear, slain, tortured, or expell'd By arm'd assaults of the fierce slave-driver. And ah! these skeletons! the tales they tell! Beside fair river-banks, beside wreck'd huts, Under green trees, under red rocks, in caves, Ghastly anatomies, in attitudes Of mortal anguish, writhed, and curl'd, and twisted, Mutually clasp'd in transports of despair!

In one closed cabin, when mine eyes conform To its faint twilight, on a rude raised bed Appear two skeletons in mouldering weeds;