Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/25

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��Or when the halcyon sported on the breeze, In light canoes they skimm'd the ripling seas ; Their lives in dreams of soothing languor flew, No parted joys, no future pains they knew. The passing moment all their bliss or care ; Such as the sires had been, the children were From age to age ; as waves upon the tide Of stormless time, they calmly lived and died.

Dreadful as hurricanes, athwart the main Rush'd the fell legions of invading Spain ; With fraud and force, with false and fatal breath, ( Submission bondage, and resistance death, ) They swept the isles. In vain the simple race Kneel'd to the iron sceptre of their grace, Or with weak arms their fieiy vengeance braved ; They came, they saw, they conquer'd, they enslaved, And they destroy'd ; — the generous heart they broke, They crush'd the timid neck beneath the yoke ;

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