 | Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper : |  |
DEATH OF ZOMBI
The Chief of a Negro Kingdom in South Africa
Cruel in vengeance, reckless in wrath,The hunters of men bore down on our path;
Inhuman and fierce, the offer they gave
Was freedom in death or the life of a slave.
The cheek of the mother grew pallid with dread,
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And closer and closer she strained to her heart
The children she feared they would sever apart.
The brows of our maidens grew gloomy and sad;
Hot tears burst from eyes once sparkling and glad.
Our young men stood ready to join in the fray,
That hung as a pall 'round our people that day.
Our leaders gazed angry and stern on the strife,
For freedom to them was dearer than life.
There was mourning at home and death in the street,
For carnage and famine together did meet.
The pale lips of hunger were asking for bread,
While husbands and fathers lay bleeding and dead.
For days we withstood the tempests of wrath,
That scattered destruction and death in our path,
Till, broken and peeled, we yielded at last,
And the glory and strength of our kingdom were past.
But Zombi, our leader, and warlike old chief,
Gazed down on our woe with anger and grief;
The tyrant for him forged fetters in vain,
His freedom-girt limbs had worn their last chain.
A freeman he'd lived and free he would die.
Defiance and daring still flashed from his eye;
So he climbed to the verge of a dangerous steep,
Resolved from its margin to take a last leap;
For a fearful death and a bloody grave
Were dearer to him than the life of a slave.
Nor went he alone to the mystic land—
There were other warriors in his band,
Who rushed with him to Death's dark gate,
All wrapped in the shroud of a mournful fate.
| Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper : | |