THE SLAVE SINGING AT MID-
NIGHT.

LOUD he sang the psalm of David!
He, a Negro and enslaved,
Sang of Israel's victory,
Sang of Zion, bright and free.

In that hour, when night is calmest,
Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,
In a voice so sweet and clear
That I could not choose but hear,

Songs of triumph, and ascriptions, Such as reached the swart Egyptians,

When upon the Red Sea coast
Perished Pharaoh and his host.

THE WITNESSES.

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
Whose fettered, fleshless limbs
Freighted with human forms,
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 !"

THE QUADROON GIRL.

THE Slaver in the broad lagoon

Lay moored with idle sail; He waited for the rising moon, And for the evening gale.

Under the shore his boat was tied, And all her listless crew

hearts, and saying.

"O, I am dead!" a lover in a closet, An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,

Don Carlos ;

How happened it?

DON CARLOS.

I had engagements elsewhere. Pray who was there?

LARA.

Why, all the town and court. The house was crowded; and the busy fans

Among the gayly dressed and perfumed ladies

Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers.

23-L & B-K

Followed at twilight by an unknown

lover.

LARA.

fell

As lightly as a sunbeam on the

water.

Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held

DON CARLOS.

You forget

DON CARLOS.

Almost beyond the privilege of

woman!

I saw her in the Prado yesterday. Her step was royal,-queen-like,and her face

As beautiful as a saint's in Paradise.

LARA.

May not a saint fall from her Paradise,

And be no more a saint?

DON CARLOS.

Why do you ask?

LARA.

Because I have heard it said this angel fell,

And, though she is a virgin outwardly,

Within she is a sinner; like those panels

Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks

Painted in convents, with the Virgin

Mary

Nay, not to be won at all! The only virtue that a Gypsy prizes Is chastity. That is her only virtue. Dearer than life she holds it. I remember

A Gypsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,

Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;

And yet this woman was above all bribes.

And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,

The wild and wizard beauty of her race,

Offered her gold to be what she made others,

She turned upon him, with a look of

scorn, And smote him in the face! LARA.

And does that prove

Venus !