| |
| THESE Indian isles, so green and gay, | |
| In summer seas by Nature placed,— | |
| Art hardly told us where they lay | |
| Till tyranny their charms defaced; | |
| Ambition there her conquests made, | 5 |
| And avarice rifled every shade! | |
| |
| The Genius wept, his sons to see | |
| By foreign arms untimely fall, | |
| And some to distant climates flee | |
| Where later ruin met them all: | 10 |
| He saw his sylvan offspring bleed | |
| That fiercer natures might succeed. | |
| |
| The chief that first o’er barren waves | |
| To these fair islands found his way, | |
| Departing, left a race of slaves, | 15 |
| Cortez, thy mandate to obey; | |
| And these again, if fame says true, | |
| To lord it o’er the savage crew. | |
| |
| No more to Indian coasts confined,— | |
| The Genius thus indulged his grief; | 20 |
| While he to woe his heart resigned, | |
| To see the proud European chief | |
| Pursue the harmless Indian race, | |
| Torn by his dogs in every chase! | |
| |
| Ah, what a change! the ambient deep | 25 |
| No longer hears the lover’s sigh; | |
| But wretches meet to wail and weep | |
| The loss of their dear liberty; | |
| Unfeeling hearts possess these isles, | |
| Man frowns, and only Nature smiles. | 30 |
| |
| Proud of these vast extended shores | |
| The haughty Spaniard calls his own, | |
| No other world may share those stores | |
| To other worlds so little known; | |
| His Cuba lies a wilderness, | 35 |
| Where slavery digs what slaves possess. | |
| |
| Jamaica’s sweet romantic vales | |
| In vain with golden, harvests teem, | |
| Her endless spring, her balmy gales, | |
| Did more to me than magic seem; | 40 |
| Yet what the god profusely gave | |
| Is there denied the toiling slave. | |
| |
| Fantastic joy and fond belief | |
| Through life support the galling chain, | |
| Hope’s airy prospects banish grief, | 45 |
| And bring his native climes again; | |
| His native groves his heaven display, | |
| The funeral is the joyous day. | |
| |
| For man reduced to such disgrace | |
| In vain from Jove fair virtue fell: | 50 |
| Distress compels him to be base, | |
| He has no motive to excel; | |
| In death alone his prospects end, | |
| The world’s worst foe is his best friend. | |
| |
| How great their praise, let truth declare | 55 |
| Who, smit with honor’s sacred flame, | |
| Bade freedom to these coasts repair, | |
| Assumed the slave’s neglected claim, | |
| And scorning interest’s sordid plan | |
| Proved to mankind the rights of man. | 60 |
| |
| Ascending here, may this warm sun, | |
| With freedom’s beams divinely clear, | |
| Throughout the world his circuit run | |
| Till these dark prospects disappear, | |
| And a new race, not bought or sold, | 65 |
| Springs from the ashes of the old. | |
| |
