10 POEMS OF SLAVERY. And on her lips there played a smile As light in some cathedral aisle The features of a saint. "The soil is barren,-the farm is old; The thoughtful Planter said; Then looked upon the Slaver's gold, And then upon the maid. His heart within him was at strife With such accursed gains; For he knew whose passions gave her life, Whose blood ran in her veins. But the voice of nature was too weak; Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek, THE QUADROON GIRL. The Slaver led her from the door. He led her by the hand, In a strange and distant iand I 293 THE WARNING. BEWARE! The Israelite of old, who tore The lion in his path,-when, poor and blind, He saw the blessed light of heaven no more, Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind In prison, and at last led forth to be A pander to Philistine revelry,.-— Upon the pillars of the temple laid His desperate hands, and in its overthrow Destroyed himself, and with him those who Inade A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; O THE WARNING. 295 The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all, Expired, and thousands perished in the fall! There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, And shake the pillars of this Commonweal Till the vast Temple of our liberties A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies |