Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/55

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Not for his victims strangled in the deeps,' Not for his crimes the harden'd pirate weeps, But grimly smiling, when the storm is o'er. Counts his sure gains, and hun-ies back for more.*

Lives there a reptile baser than the slave ? ^ — Loathsome as death, corrupted as the grave. See the dull Creole, at his pompous board. Attendant vassals cringing romid their lord ; Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close. Voluptuous minions fan him to repose ; Prone on the noonday couch he lolls in vain, Delirious slumbers rock his maudlin brain ; He starts in horror from bewildering dreams. His bloodshot eye with fire and frenzy gleams ; He stalks abroad ; through all his wonted rounds. The negro trembles, and the lash resounds. And cries of anguish, shrilling through the air, To distant fields his dread approach declare.

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