"One pale moment fix'd I stood

In astonishment severe;
Horror petrified my blood,—
I was wither'd up with fear.

"Then a sudden trembling came
O'er my limbs; I felt on fire,
Burning, quivering like a flame
In the instant to expire."

SHEPHERD.

"Rather like the mountain-oak, Tempest-shaken, rooted fast, Grasping strength from every stroke. While it wrestles with the blast."

WANDERER.

"Ay!-my heart, unwont to yield,
Quickly quell'd the strange affright,
And undaunted o'er the field
I began my lonely flight.

"Loud the gusty night-wind blew ;—
Many an awful pause between,
Fits of light and darkness flew,
Wild and sudden o'er the scene.

"For the moon's resplendent eye
Gleams of transient glory shed;
And the clouds, athwart the sky,
Like a routed army, fled.

"Sounds and voices fill'd the vale, Heard alternate loud and low; Shouts of victory swell'd the gale, But the breezes murmur'd woe.

"As I climb'd the mountain's side, Where the Lake and Valley meet, All my country's power and pride Lay in ruins at my feet.

"On that grim and ghastly plain Underwalden's heart-strings broke, When she saw her heroes slain, And her rocks receive the yoke.

"On that plain, in childhood's hours, From their mothers' arms set free, Oft those heroes gather'd flowers, Often chased the wandering bee.

"On that plain, in rosy youth, They had fed their fathers' flocks,

Told their love, and pledged their truth, In the shadow of those rocks.

"There, with shepherd's pipe and song,
In the merry mingling dance,
Once they led their brides along,
Now!Perdition seize thee, France!"

SHEPHERD.

"Heard not Heaven the accusing cries Of the blood that smoked around, While the life-warm sacrifice Palpitated on the ground?"

WANDERER.

"Wrath in silence heaps his store,
To confound the guilty foe;
But the thunder will not roar
Till the flash has struck the blow.

"Vengeance, vengeance will not stay:
It shall burst on Gallia's head,
Sudden as the judgment-day
To the unexpecting dead.

"From the Revolution's flood
Shall a fiery dragon start;

He shall drink his mother's blood,
He shall eat his father's heart.

"Nurst by Anarchy and Crime, He

"

-but distance mocks my sight, Oh thou great avenger, TIME! Bring thy strangest birth to light."

SHEPHERD.

"Prophet! thou hast spoken well,
And I deem thy words divine:
Now the mournful sequel tell
Of thy country's woes and thine."

WANDERER.

"Though the moon's bewilder'd bark, By the midnight tempest tost, In a sea of vapors dark,

In a gulf of clouds was lost;

Still my journey I pursued, Climbing many a weary steep, Whence the closing scene I view'd With an eye that would not weep.

"Stantz-a melancholy pyreAnd her hamlets blazed behind, With ten thousand tongues of fire Writhing, raging in the wind.'

"Flaming piles, where'er I turn'd,
Cast a grim and dreadful light;
Like funereal lamps they burn'd
In the sepulchre of night;

"While the red illumined flood,
With a hoarse and hollow roar,
Seem'd a lake of living blood,
Wildly weltering on the shore.

WANDERER.

"Though our parent perish'd here,
Like the Phoenix on her nest,
Lo! new-fledged her wings appear,
Hovering in the golden West.

"Thither shall her sons repair,
And beyond the roaring main
Find their native country there,
Find their Switzerland again.

"Mountains, can ye chain the will?
Ocean, canst thou quench the heart?
No; I feel my country still,
LIBERTY! where'er thou art.

"Thus it was in hoary time,
When our fathers sallied forth,
Full of confidence sublime,
From the famine-wasted North.'

"Freedom, in a land of rocks
Wild as Scandinavia, give,
Power Eternal! where our flocks
And our little ones may live.'

"Thus they pray'd ;-
-a sacred hand
Led them by a path unknown,
To that dear delightful land
Which I yet must call my own.

"To the Vale of Switz they came.
Soon their meliorating toil
Gave the forests to the flame,
And their ashes to the soil.

"Thence their ardent labors spread,
Till above the mountain-snows
Towering beauty show'd her head,
And a new creation rose!

"So, in regions wild and wide, We will pierce the savage woods, Clothe the rocks in purple pride,

Plow the valleys, tame the floods;

9

1 There is a tradition among the Swiss, that they are deIscended from the ancient Scandinavians; among whom, in a remote age, there arose so grievons a famine, that it was determined in the assembly of the Nation, that every tenth man and his family should quit their country, and seek a new possession. Six thousand, chosen by lot, thus emigrated at once from the North. They prayed to God to conduct them to a land like their own, where they might dwell in freedom and quiet, finding food for their families, and pasture for their cattle. God, says the tradition, led them to a valley among the Alps, where they cleared away the forests, built the town of Switz, and afterwards peopled and cultivated the cantons of Uri and Underwalden.

193

THE WEST INDIES.

PART I.

ARGUMENT.

Introduction; on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The Mariner's Compass.-Columbus.-The Discovery of America.-The West Indian Islands.The Caribs-Their Extermination.

"THY chains are broken, Africa: be free!" Thus saith the island-empress of the sea; Thus saith Britannia-Oh, ye winds and waves! Waft the glad tidings to the land of slaves; Proclaim on Guinea's coast, by Gambia's side, And far as Niger rolls his eastern tide,' Through radiant realms, beneath the burning zone, Where Europe's curse is felt, her name unknown, Thus saith Britannia, empress of the sea, "Thy chains are broken, Africa: be free!"

Long lay the ocean-paths from man conceal'd:

Light came from heaven, the magnet was reveal'd,
A surer star to guide the seaman's eye
Than the pale glory of the northern sky;
Alike ordain'd to shine by night and day,
Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray;
Where'er the mountains rise, the billows roll,
Still with strong impulse turning to the pole,
True as the sun is to the morning true,
Though light as film, and trembling as the dew.

Then man no longer plied with timid oar,
And failing heart, along the windward shore;
Broad to the sky he turn'd his fearless sail,
Defied the adverse, woo'd the favoring gale,
Bared to the storm his adamantine breast,
Or soft on Ocean's lap lay down to rest;
While free, as clouds the liquid ether sweep,
His white-wing'd vessels coursed the unbounded deep;
From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam,
The waves his heritage, the world his home.

Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land; The floods o'erbalanced-where the tide of light, Day after day, roll'd down the gulf of night, There seem'd one waste of waters :-long in vain His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main; When sudden, as creation burst from nought, Sprang a new world, through his stupendous thought, Light, order, beauty!-While his mind explored The unveiling mystery, his heart adored; Where'er sublime imagination trod,

He heard the voice, he saw the face of God.

Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye O'er the wide ocean stretching to the sky:

In calm magnificence the sun declined,
And left a paradise of clouds behind:
Proud at his feet, with pomp of pearl and gold,
The billows in a sea of glory roll'd.

"Ah! on this sea of glory might I sail, Track the bright sun, and pierce the eternal veil That hides those lands, beneath Hesperian skies, Where day-light sojourns till our morrow rise!'

Thoughtful he wander'd on the beach alone; Mild o'er the deep the vesper planet shone, The eye of evening, brightening through the west Till the sweet moment when it shut to rest: "Whither, O golden Venus! art thou fled? Not in the ocean-chambers lies thy bed; Round the dim world thy glittering chariot drawn Pursues the twilight, or precedes the dawn; Thy beauty noon and midnight never see, The morn and eve divide the year with thee."

Soft fell the shades, till Cynthia's slender bow
Crested the farthest wave, then sunk below:
"Tell me, resplendent guardian of the night,
Circling the sphere in thy perennial flight,
What secret path of heaven thy smiles adorn,

What nameless sea reflects thy gleaming horn?"

Now earth and ocean vanish'd, all serene
The starry firmament alone was seen;
Through the slow, silent hours, he watch'd the host
Of midnight suns in western darkness lost,
Till Night himself, on shadowy pinions borne,
Fled o'er the mighty waters, and the morn
Danced on the mountains :-" Lights of heaven!" he
cried,

"Lead on ;-I go to win a glorious bride;
Fearless o'er gulfs unknown I urge my way,
Where peril prowls, and shipwreck lurks for prey:
Hope swells my sail-in spirit I behold
That maiden world, twin-sister of the cld,
By nature nursed beyond the jealous sea,
Denied to ages, but betroth'd to me."1

1 When the Author of The West Indies conceived the plan of this introduction of Columbus, he was not aware that he was indebted to any preceding poet for a hint on the subject; but, some time afterwards, on a second perusal of Southey's Madoc, it struck him that the idea of Columbus walking on the shore at sunset, which he had hitherto imagined his own, might be only a reflection of the impression made upon his mind long before, by the first reading of the following splendid passage. He therefore gladly makes this acknowledgment, though at his own expense, in justice to the Author of the noblest narrative poem in the English language, after the Faerie Queen and Paradise Lost.

When evening came, toward the echoing shore
I and Cadwallon walk'd together forth;
Bright with dilated glory shone the west;
But brighter lay the ocean flood below,

The burnish'd silver sea, that heaved and flash'd
Its restless rays intolerably bright.

"Prince!" quoth Cadwallon, "thou hast rode the waves
In triumph when the Invader felt thine arm.

Oh what a nobler conquest might be won
There,-upon that wide field!" "What meanest thou?"

I cried: "That yonder waters are not spread

A boundless waste, a bourne impassable;
That thou shouldst rule the elements,—that there
Might manly courage, manly wisdom, find
Some happy isle, some undiscover'd shore,

The winds were prosperous, and the billows bore The brave adventurer to the promised shore; Far in the west, array'd in purple light, Dawn'd the new world on his enraptured sight: Not Adam, loosen'd from the encumbering earth, Waked by the breath of God to instant birth, With sweeter, wilder wonder gazed around, When life within, and light without he found; When, all creation rushing o'er his soul,

Earth from her lap perennial verdure pours,
Ambrosial fruits, and amarant hine flowers;
O'er the wild mountains and luxuriant plains,
Nature in all the pomp of beauty reigns,
In all the pride of freedom.--NATURE FREE
Proclaims that MAN was born for liberty.
She flourishes where'er the sun-beams play
O'er living fountains, sallying into day;
She withers where the waters cease to roll,

So felt Columbus, when, divinely fair,

At the last look of resolute despair,

The Hesperian isles, from distance dimly blue,
With gradual beauty open'd on his view.
In that proud moment, his transported mind
The morning and the evening worlds combined,
And made the sea, that sunder'd them before
A bond of peace, uniting shore to shore.

Vain, visionary hope! rapacious Spain
Follow'd her hero's triumph o'er the main,
Her hardy sons in fields of battle tried,
Where Moor and Christian desperately died.
A rabid race, fanatically bold,

And steel'd to cruelty by lust of gold,
Traversed the waves, the unknown world explored,
The cross their standard, but their faith the sword;
Their steps were graves; o'er prostrate realms they
trod;

They worshipp'd Mammon while they vow'd to God.

Let nobler bards in loftier numbers tell
How Cortez conquer'd, Montezuma fell;
How fierce Pizarro's ruffian arm o'erthrew
The Sun's resplendent empire in Peru;
How, like a prophet, old Las Casas stood,
And raised his voice against a sea of blood,
Whose chilling waves recoil'd while he foretold
His country's ruin by avenging gold.

-That gold, for which unpitied Indians fell,
That gold, at once the snare and scourge of hell,
Thenceforth by righteous Heaven was doom'd to shed
Unmingled curses on the spoiler's head;
For gold the Spaniard cast his soul away,―
His gold and he were every nation's prey.

But themes like these would ask an angel-lyre,
Language of light and sentiment of fire;
Give me to sing, in melancholy strains,
Of Carib martyrdoms and Negro chains;
One race by tyrants rooted from the earth,
One doom'd to slavery by the taint of birth!

Where first his drooping sails Columbus furl'd, And sweetly rested in another world, Amidst the heaven-reflecting ocean, smiles A constellation of elysian isles; Fair as Orion, when he mounts on high, Sparkling with midnight splendor from the sky: They bask beneath the sun's meridian rays, When not a shadow breaks the boundless blaze; The breath of ocean wanders through their vales In morning breezes and in evening gales:

Some resting-place for peace. Oh! that my soul
Could seize the wings of morning! soon would I
Behold that other world, where yonder sun
Now speeds to dawn in glory."

Man too, where freedom's beams and fountains rise,
Springs from the dust, and blossoms to the skies;
Dead to the joys of light and life, the slave
Clings to the clod; his root is in the grave:
Bondage is winter, darkness, death, despair;
Freedom the sun, the sea, the mountains, and the air!

In placid indolence supinely blest,

A feeble race these beauteous isles possess'd;
Untamed, untaught, in arts and arms unskill'd,
Their patrimonial soil they rudely till'd,
Chased the free rovers of the savage wood,
Ensnared the wild-bird, swept the scaly flood;
Shelter'd in lowly huts their fragile forms
From burning suns and desolating storms;
Or when the halcyon sported on the breeze,
In light canoes they skimm'd the rippling seas:
Their lives in dreams of soothing languor flew,
No parted joys, no future pains, they knew,
The passing moment all their bliss or care;
Such as their sires had been the children were,
From age to age; as waves upon the tide
Of stormless time, they calmly lived and died.

Dreadful as hurricanes, athwart the main
Rush'd the fell legions of invading Spain;
With fraud and force, with false and fatal breath
(Submission bondage, and resistance death),
They swept the isles. In vain the simple race
Kneel'd to the iron sceptre of their grace,

Or with weak arms their fiery vengeance braved;
They came, they saw, they conquer'd, they enslaved,
And they destroy'd;-the generous heart they broke,
They crush'd the timid neck beneath the yoke;
Where'er to battle march'd their fell array,
The sword of conquest plow'd resistless way;
Where'er from cruel toil they sought repose,
Around the fires of devastation rose.

The Indian, as he turn'd his head in flight,
Beheld his cottage flaming through the night,
And, 'midst the shrieks of murder on the wind,
Heard the mute blood-hound's death-step close behind.

The conflict o'er, the valiant in their graves, The wretched remnant dwindled into slaves; Condemn'd in pestilential cells to pine, Delving for gold amidst the gloomy mine. The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath, Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death: -Condemn'd to fell the mountain palm on high, That cast its shadow from the evening sky, Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke, The woodman languish'd, and his heart-strings broke; -Condemn'd, in torrid noon, with palsied hand, To urge the slow plow o'er the obdurate land,