Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/38

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Captives of tyrant power and dastard wiles, Dispeopled Africa, and gorged the isles. Loud and perpetual o'er the Atlantic waves. For guilty ages, roll'd the tide of slaves ; A tide that knew no fall, no turn, no rest. Constant as day and night from east to west ; Still widening, deepening, swelling in its course, With boundless ruin and resistless force.

Quickly by Spain's alluring fortune fired, With hopes of fame, and dreams of wealth inspired, Europe's dread powers, from ignominious ease Started ; their pennons stream'd on every breeze : And still where'er the wide discoveries spread, The cane was planted and the native bled ; While, nursed by fiercer suns, of nobler race, The negro toil'd and perish'd in his place.

First, Lusitania,— she whose prows had borne Her arms triumphant round the car of morn,

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