Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Poems of Henry W. Longfellow. New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1901,
page 231.
In Ocean's wide domains,
Half buried in the sands,
Like skeletons in chains,
With shackled feet and hands.
Beyond the fall of dews,
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,
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,
"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.
Dead bodies, that the kite
In deserts makes its prey;
Murders, that with affright
Scare schoolboys from their play !
All evil thoughts and deeds;
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;
They cry, from unknown graves,
"We are the Witnesses!"