 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
287
AFRICA'S SELF-BLOCKADE.
Sister, we are not slow to learn of theeHow best to compass good; how best to pour
Freedom and health, as on Liberia's shore,
Along the skirt of Afric's Western sea;
Sister Columbia, wiser than of yore
We love in all things generous to agree;
And, well content if blessings so may be
To the poor darkling slave, a slave no more,
Frankly we haste to fringe the sea-board thus
With homes and fields of freemen: glad to win
Around the standards rear'd by thee and us,
Body and soul, the rescued sons of sin
From both worlds' doom of bitterest and worst,
No more poor slaves benighted and accurst.
| Three Hundred Sonnets | |