| |
| IN Ocean’s wide domains, | |
| Half buried in the sands, | |
| Lie skeletons in chains, | |
| With shackled feet and hands. | |
| |
| Beyond the fall of dews, | 5 |
| Deeper than plummet lies, | |
| Float ships, with all their crews, | |
| No more to sink nor rise. | |
| |
| There the black Slave-ship swims, | |
| Freighted with human forms, | 10 |
| Whose fettered, fleshless limbs | |
| Are not the sport of storms. | |
| |
| These are the bones of Slaves; | |
| They gleam from the abyss; | |
| They cry, from yawning waves, | 15 |
| “We are the Witnesses!” | |
| |
| Within Earth’s wide domains | |
| Are markets for men’s lives; | |
| Their necks are galled with chains, | |
| Their wrists are cramped with gyves. | 20 |
| |
| Dead bodies, that the kite | |
| In deserts makes its prey; | |
| Murders, that with affright | |
| Scare school-boys from their play! | |
| |
| All evil thoughts and deeds; | 25 |
| Anger, and lust, and pride; | |
| The foulest, rankest weeds, | |
| That choke Life’s groaning tide! | |
| |
| These are the woes of Slaves; | |
| They glare from the abyss; | 30 |
| They cry, from unknown graves, | |
| “We are the Witnesses!” | |
| |
