Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/52

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The broken lieart, which kindness never lieals,

The home-sick passion which the negro feels,

^V^len toiHng, fainting in the land of canes,

His spirit wanders to his native plains;

His little lovely dwelling there he sees,

Beneath the shade of his paternal trees,

The home of comfort: — then before his eyes

The terrors of captivity arise.

— 'Twas night: — his babes around him lay at rest>

Their mother slumber'd on their father's breast:

A yell of murder rang around their bed;

They woke; their cottage blazed; the victims fled;

Forth sprang the ambush'd ruffians on their prey.

They caught, they bound, they drove them far away;

The white man bought them at the mart of blood;

In pestilential barks they cross'd the flood;

Then were the wretched ones asunder torn.

To distant isles, to separate bondage borne.

Denied, though sought with tears, the sad relief

That misery loves,— the fellowship of grief.

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