 | Prometheus delivered |  |
I. PART I.
LUCTUS, UBIQUE PAVOR, ET PLURIMA MORTIS IMAGO.
ÆN. II.
The arid surge, o'erwhelming in its sweep
Horse, horseman, and the camel's towering crest,
As by the stars the struggling caravan,
At midnight hour, their sultry voyage steer;
Beyond that wilderness the nations dwelt
In peace and happiness: no foreign foe
Had crossed the desert or had ploughed the main,
Conveying warfare and the seeds of war.
There bounteous nature with spontaneous hand
Has scattered every herb, tree, shrub, and flower,
That ministers to man's delight or use:
Bud, blossom, fruit, adorn at once the boughs,
While mid the gay festoons full many a bird,
Of plumage various, brilliant as the hues
In that fair land of hill, and dale, and stream,
The simple tribes from age to age had heard
No hostile voice, save when the lion's roar
Or tiger's howl was heard far in the woods;
Far in the woods was then the lion's haunt,
For then each bow was bent, each lance was poised
Against the savage tenants of the wild;
More savage men as yet were there unknown.
Safe on the Atlantic beach the old and young
In mirth and revelry were wont to join;
Beneath his plantain tree the father sat,
And, while his children joyous played around,
Indulged the hope, unmingled with a fear,
That in the midst of them his days should end.
From scenes of crimes, of cruelties and woes.
Horror my theme! no soothing strain I sing:
Let selfish sensibility wink hard,
‘True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear. It consists not in starting or shrinking at such tales as these, but in a disposition of heart to relieve misery. True humanity appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves, and prompts men to use real and active endeavours to execute the actions which it suggests.’ I know not who is the author of this passage. It is the quotation of a quotation from Wilberforce's Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, p. 38, 3d Edition.
And bar both ears against the rude assault;
There still are manly minds who bend a look
Steadfast on guilt in all its hideous forms,
Who misery firm survey with tearless eye,
Yet melting heart, and hand prompt to relieve.
Truth, gloomy truth, tho' robed in weeds deep drench'd
In blood, should meet unveiled the public view,
That spacious stage, round which an audience draws
Numerous as they who speak Britannia's tongue.
Undauntedly, and aim the fateful ball
With keen remorseless eye, boasting the deed
By which a husband and a father falls;
Then hurries off his unprotected prey,
A frantic widow with her orphan babes.
Now Treachery lurks beneath the flowery smile
Of meeting friends, and stings with double pang.
Even princes traitors prove, and oft conspire
To sell their subjects: lo, at midnight hour
The royal mandate lights the treacherous flame
That o'er the deep-hushed hamlet ruin spreads.
Wildered with terror, parents, children flee,
But rush upon a fate, than what they shun
More dreadful; every bond that binds to life
Burst, never to be joined, and in their stead
Chains, dungeons, torments, torturing disease,
With but one melancholy beam of hope
Reflected faintly from a watery tomb.
'Twas Europe sent the dæmon mission forth,
Soon as her sons had learnt the magnet's power,—
Mysterious pilot! whose wide ken discerns,
The polar lamp; whose restless tremulous hand,—
Whether the labouring ship couch 'tween the waves,
Or reeling quiver on the foaming ridge,—
Still points aright, and guides her o'er the deep.
By England was engrossed. From Mersey's bay,
Or turbid Severn, mark the gallant ship,
Gaily bedecked, a scene of seeming joy,
Where many a heavy and repentant heart
Sees the green shore recede, the mountains grey
Sink from the straining sight, and nought all round
But wave and sky. Ere long sweet-scented airs,
From Lusitania's groves, swell every sail
With fragrance, every heart with vernal joy:
Smiling the aged helmsman turns to breathe
The balmy gale; while from the topmast height
The ship-boy spies the blossom-gilded shore
And thinks how happy is the land-boy's life,
Who fearless climbs among the loaded boughs.
These shores glide fast away, and Atlas frowns
Far o'er the deep: the fire-peaked Teneriffe
Amid the gloom of night is first descried:
With day, the islands falsely happy called
Pass in review, and tropic waves succeed.
Death-omening birds supply a convoy dire;
Or forward flocking, ere the ship appear,
Wheel clamorous, and perch upon the beach,
Sure harbingers of wretchedness to him
Who daily with the sun, to scan the deep,
Yon mountain climbs, leading with boding breast
His playful boy. And now the sails appear
Hung in the dim horizon: freedom's flag,
Britannia's glowing ensign, is descried;
Then full in view the floating prison-house,
The Pandorean ark of every curse
Imagination can combine to blast
Poor human life, comes rolling o'er the surge.
The mother strains her infant to her breast,
And weeps to think her eldest-born has reached
Those years, which, tender though they be, provoke
The white man's thirst of gain: more dreadful far
The white man's scowl, than the couched lion's glare!
Fiercely the mid-day sun beat overhead;
No shadow followed Maliel's playful steps,
As from the field, where he had watched to scare
‘Abundance of little blacks of both sexes are also stolen away by their neighbours, when found abroad on the roads, or in the woods, or else in the engans, or cornfields, where they are kept all day to scare the small birds that come in swarms to feed on the millet.’ Barbot's Travels—Astley. vol. ii. p. 256.
The plundering birds, he sought the neighbouring wood
To drink the water from the chaliced herb;—
Sudden a hurrying step behind he hears:
It is the white man's tread. Trembling he flies
The thunder of the new-waked lion's mouth,
Comes full upon his ear: the oppressor's hand
With fetters loaded, or the lion's paw,—
Such is the dire alternative he views;—
Forward he flies and darts into the wood.
From individual crime, though deep their dye,
Compared to that destruction which awaits
On war, on war incited by the arts
Of men, professing to obey the words
Of Him, whose law was peace.
The bribe for blood, is struck, the doom pronounced,
By which a peaceful unoffending race
Are sentenced to the sword, to exile, chains.—
Calm was the eve, and cooling was the gale
That gently fanned Koöma's Bentang tree:
Beneath its canopy the aged throng
Sat garrulous, and praised the lightsome days
Of better years, yet blessed their lot that now,
Beneath the boughs which waved above their sires,
They see their children round about them sport
In mirthful rings, or hear the horn that sounds
The herd's approach: alas, 'tis not the sound
Of herdsman's horn: it is the trumpet's voice,
Homeward each warrior hies and grasps the spear,
And slings the quiver o'er his throbbing breast,
Trembling for those who weeping round him wait,
But bold in conscious courage and his cause.—
Quick round the Bentang, all in martial guise,
The dauntless phalanx eager is arrayed;
Not one who claims, though but in half-formed voice,
The name of man, waits for the chieftain's call:
Even boys, who scarce can string their childish bows,
Press keenly forward, and like untrained dogs
Are rated home. To stem the tide of war,
Forward the warriors haste: the foe appears,
The bonbalon resounds; the murderous yell,
Impatient of delay, is raised; no pause
Allowed for marshalling, with van to van,
Opponent, stretched in parallel array,
But line with line, the chiefs at either head,
Is fiercely joined, like two infuriate snakes
That crested meet, entwining, till convolved
They form a writhing globe, and poisoned die
By mutual wounds. Not so the combat ends
That seals Koöma's doom: right yields to power.
O'erwhelmed by numbers, fathers, husbands, lie
Dead, bleeding, dying; blessed are the dead!
The bolted ir'on; while from a neighbouring hill
The pale-faced, ruthless author of the war,
Surveys the human harvest reaped and bound.
Fire, sword, and rapine, sweep away at once
The cottage with its inmates, and transform
The happy vale into a wilderness;
No human being, save the bowed down,
And children that scarce lisp a father's name,
Is left: as when a forest is laid low,
Haply some single and far sundered trees
Are spared, while every lowly shrub and flower,
That sheltered smiled, droops shivering in the breeze.
‘The Slatees are forced to keep them constantly in irons, and watch them very closely, to prevent their escape. They are commonly secured by putting the right leg of one, and the left of the other, into the same pair of fetters. By supporting the fetters with a string, they can walk, though very slowly. Every four slaves are likewise fastened together by the necks, with a strong rope of twisted thongs; and in the night, an additional pair of fetters is put on their hands, and sometimes a light iron chain passed round their necks.’
Parke, p. 319.‘During this day's travel two slaves, a woman and a girl, belonging to a Slatee of Bala, were so much fatigued, that they could not keep up with the coffle; they were severely whipped, and dragged along till about three o'clock in the afternoon, when they were both affected with something, by which it was discovered that they had eaten clay. This practice is by no means uncommon among the negroes, but whether it arises from a vitiated appetite, or from a settled intention to destroy themselves, I cannot affirm. Parke
‘We accordingly set out together, and travelled with great expedition through the woods, until noon, when one of the Sorawolli slaves dropped the load from his head, for which he was smartly whipped. The load was replaced; but he had not proceeded above a mile before he let it fall a second time, for which he received the same punishment. After this he travelled with great pain until about two o'clock, when we stopped to breathe a little, by a pool of water, the day being remarkably hot. The poor slave was now so completely exhausted, that his master was obliged to release him from the rope, for he lay motionless on the ground. Parke, p. 346, 7.
‘During a wearisome peregrination of more than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, these poor slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater sufferings, would commiserate mine; and frequently, of their own accord, bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves to prepare me a bed in the wilderness.” Parke, p. 356, 7.
In sad community of chains, drag on
Their iron-cumbered limbs, while oft the scourge
Or unclosed wound leaves in the thirsty sand
The traces of their miserable way.
At last the fainting victims reach the shore,
Where low they lie, dispersed in mournful bands;
Then are unbound, to bear the butcher gripe
Of brutal traffickers, or join the dance,
Mockery of mirth! to harmony of whips.
Most lamentable are the peals of cries,
Of brother, sister severed; every tie
Of kindred by one rude revulsion riven.
Some kindred groups remain entire, and feel
The solace of society in woe.
Behold a father driven with his sons,
The mother with her nursling in her arms.—
To meet yon ship, now newly hove in sight
And unsupplied, the trader with his flock
Hastes to the water edge, where waits his boat
Its human cargo: first the sire is bound
And thrown beneath a bench; the rest unbound
Implicit follow where affection leads:
His darling boy hastes in and lays him down,
A gentle pillow to his father's head,
And with his little hand would dry the tears
That fill the upward-turned, despairing eye.
Quick plunge the oars; fleetly to eyes unused
The land retreating seems, while the huge ship
Comes towering on with all her bulging sails;
And now she nighs, and now her shadow spreads
Dark o'er the little barge's captive freight,
Like vulture's wings above the trembling lamb.
Plies from the shore to meet the floating mart.
Elbows the brine? He is a boy, bereft
Of sight, and worthless in the trader's eye;
The only remnant to a father left
Of all his children; he the best beloved,
Because most helpless; yet no prayer will move
The felon merchant to admit the child
To share the fetters which his father bind:
And now he gains upon the sounding oars
That guide his following course, and now the side
Eager he grasps, and, though still pushed away,
Still he returns, till frequent on his hands
He feels the bruising blow; then down he sinks,
Nor makes one faint endeavour for his life.
| Prometheus delivered | |