| |
| THEY 1 died—the young—the loved, the brave, | |
| The death barge came for them. | |
| And where the seas yon crag rocks lave | |
| Their nightly requiem, | |
| They buried them all, and threw the sand | 5 |
| Unhallow’dly o’er that patriot band. | |
| |
| The black ship, like a demon sate, | |
| Upon the prowling deep; | |
| From her, came fearful sounds of hate, | |
| Till pain still’d all in sleep— | 10 |
| It was the sleep that victims take, | |
| Tied, tortured, dying, at the stake. | |
| |
| Yet some, the deep has now updug, | |
| Their bones are in the sun; | |
| And whether by sword, or deadly drug, | 15 |
| They died—yes—one by one. | |
| Was it not strange to mortal eye, | |
| To see them all so strangely die? | |
| |
| No death upon the field was theirs, | |
| No war-peal o’er their graves, | 20 |
| They who were born as Freedom’s heirs, | |
| Were stabb’d like traitor slaves. | |
| Their patriot hearts were doom’d to feel | |
| Dishonor—with the victor’s steel. * * * * | |
| There come upon the stilly eve, | 25 |
| Wild songs from yon wild shore; | |
| And then the surges more wildly heave | |
| Their hoarse and growling roar, | |
| When dead men sing unearthly glees, | |
| And shout in laughing revelries. | 30 |
| |
| The corpse-light shines, like some pale star, | |
| From out the dead men’s cliff; | |
| And the sea nymphs sail in their coral car, | |
| With those that are cold and stiff. | |
| And they sail near the spot of treachery, where | 35 |
| The tide has left the dark ship bare. | |
| |
| Are they those ancient ones, who died | |
| For freedom, and for me? | |
| They are—they point in martyr’d pride, | |
| To that spot upon the sea, | 40 |
| From whence came once the dying yell, | |
| From out that wreck—that prison’d hell. | |
| |
| Hark! hear their chant—it starts the hair | |
| It makes the blood turn cold; | |
| ’T would make the tiger forsake his lair, | 45 |
| The miser leave his gold. | |
| And see yon harper! he doth try | |
| A dead man’s note of melody. | |
| |
CHANT. Soundly sleep we in the day, | |
| And yet we trip it nightly, | 50 |
| We sail with the nymphs around each bay, | |
| When the moon peers out most brightly. | |
| And we chase our foes to their distant graves, | |
| For they, like us, are sleeping; | |
| But they dare not come o’er our bonny waves, | 55 |
| For our nightly watch we ’re keeping. | |
| Our spectres visit their foreign homes, | |
| And pluck right merrily | |
| Their bones which whiten within their tombs, | |
| And plant them here, aye, cheerily,— | 60 |
| For cheerily then we dance and sing, | |
| With our spectre band around them, | |
| And the curse and the laugh of scorn we fling, | |
| As we tell where our shadows found them. | |
| And then we go to the rotting wreck, | 65 |
| Where we drank the cup of poison, | |
| We laugh and we quaff upon her deck, | |
| Till morn comes up the horizon. | |
| But skip ye, skip ye, beneath the cliff, | |
| For the sun comes up like a fiery skiff, | 70 |
| Ploughing the waves of yon blue sky— | |
| Hie—laughing spectres, to your homes, haste—hie. | |
