Page:Poems written during the progress of the abolition question in the United States.djvu/85

 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,