by Lydia Sigourney<\/p>\n
First of that train which cursed the wave,
\nAnd from the rifled cabin bore,
\nInheritor of wo,\u2014the slave
\nTo bless his palm-tree’s shade no more,<\/p>\n
Dire engine!\u2014o’er the troubled main
\nBorne on in unresisted state,\u2014
\nKnow’st thou within thy dark domain
\nThe secrets of thy prison’d freight?\u2014<\/p>\n
Hear’st thou\u00a0their\u00a0moans whom hope hath fled?\u2014
\nWild cries, in agonizing starts?\u2014
\nKnow’st thou thy humid sails are spread
\nWith ceaseless sighs from broken hearts?\u2014<\/p>\n
The fetter’d chieftain’s burning tear,\u2014
\nThe parted lover’s mute despair,\u2014
\nThe childless mother’s pang severe,\u2014
\nThe orphan’s misery, are there.<\/p>\n
Ah!\u2014could’st thou from the scroll of fate
\nThe annal read of future years,
\nStripes,\u2014tortures,\u2014unrelenting hate,
\nAnd death-gasps drown’d in slavery’s tears.<\/p>\n
Down,\u2014down,\u2014beneath the cleaving main
\nThou fain would’st plunge where monsters lie,
\nRather than ope the gates of pain
\nFor time and for Eternity.\u2014<\/p>\n
Oh Afric!\u2014what has been thy crime?\u2014
\nThat thus like Eden’s fratricide,
\nA mark is set upon thy clime,
\nAnd every brother shuns thy side.\u2014<\/p>\n
Yet are thy wrongs, thou long-distrest!\u2014
\nThy burdens, by the world unweigh’d,
\nSafe in that\u00a0Unforgetful Breast
\nWhere all the sins of earth are laid.\u2014<\/p>\n
Poor outcast slave!\u2014Our guilty land
\nShould tremble while she drinks thy tears,
\nOr sees in vengeful silence stand,
\nThe beacon of thy shorten’d years;\u2014<\/p>\n
Should shrink to hear her sons proclaim
\nThe sacred truth that heaven is just,\u2014
\nShrink even at her Judge’s name,\u2014
\n“Jehovah,\u2014Saviour of the opprest.”<\/p>\n
The Sun upon thy forehead frown’d,
\nBut Man more cruel far than he,
\nDark fetters on thy spirit bound:\u2014
\nLook to the mansions of the free!<\/p>\n
Look to that realm where chains unbind,\u2014
\nWhere the pale tyrant drops his rod,
\nAnd where the patient sufferers find
\nA friend,\u2014a father in their God.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Public Domain \r\n\r\nSource: AllPoetry.com<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the First Slave Ship by Lydia Sigourney First of that train which cursed the wave, And from the rifled cabin bore, Inheritor of wo,\u2014the slave To bless his palm-tree’s shade no more,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[32,48,60,58],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lydia-huntley-sigourney","tag-poem","tag-religious-belief","tag-slavery","tag-social-commentary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}