Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/68

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��She, miserable mother, from the shore,

Age after age, behi'ld the barks that bore

Her tribes to bondage : — with distraction wrung,

Wild as the lioness that seeks her young.

She flash'd unheeded lightnings from her eyes ;

Her inmost deserts echoing to her cries ;

Till agony the sense of suffering stole,

And stern unconscious grief benumb'd her soul.

So Niobe, whun all her race were slain,

In ecstasy of woe forgot her pain ;

Cold in her eye serenest horror shone,

Wliile pitying Nature soolh'd her into stone.

Thus Africa, entranced with sorrow, stood. Her tix'd eye gleaming on the restless flood : — \\ hen Sharpe, on proud Britannia's chartered shore, From Lybian limbs the unsanction'd fetters tore. And taught the world, that while she rules the M'aves, Her soil is freedom to the feet of slaves :^

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