Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/62

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Yes, Africa! beneath the stranger's rod They found the freedom of the sons of God.

\Micn Europe languish'd in barbarian gloom,

Beneath the ghostly tyranny of Rome,

Whose second empire, cowl'd and mitred, burst

A phoenix, from the ashes of the first;

From Persecution's piles, by bigots fired,

Among Bohemian mountains Truth retired;

There, 'midst rude rocks, in lonely glens obscure,

She found a people scatter'd, scorn'd, and poor,

A little flock through quiet valleys led,

A Christian Israel in the desert fed,

Wliile ravening wolves, that scorn'd the shcpherd'f hand.

Laid waste God's heritage through every land.

With these the lovely Exile sojourn'd long; Sooth'd by her presence, solaced by her song, They toil'd through danger, trials, and distress, A band of Virgins in the wilderness, -

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