The Slave Ship

The Slave Ship

Chain'd foot to foot and hand to hand,

The captives took their way,

Goaded along by scourge or brand,
Wearied and sad, to the distant strand

Where the darkling slave-ship lay.

Fearful its hidden dangers were,

Where comes no breath of balmy air

To cheer the midnight gloom, -

Where not the vilest couch was spread

For sorrow's wildly throbbing head, -
Yet there, oh there were sepulchur'd,

In that lone living tomb,

The infant in its springtide hour,
The aged in its waning power,
The virgin in her life's young light,
The chieftain in his manhood's might,

To wait a darker doom.

And there was weeping; deep within

Arose the voice of mingled wo,

Above the pirate's swelling din

Of arms, and oaths, and shouts to go.

Ah who may have the power to tell

What feelings in those bosoms swell,
What thoughts, now in their might of pain,
Shiver the heart and scathe the brain;
What hopes are buried in that cry
Of nature's conquering agony;
What fancies of their hamlet fire,
Of friendship, love, and joy expire,
As wild despair of madd'ning yell
Points to them all, and shrieks, - farewell!

But there was one whom avarice disdain'd,
Forsooth because his Midas grasp could wring
Not from her bended form one might of gold:
A widow'd mother she, - and from her side
With ruffian band a blooming boy they tore.
Who has not known a mother's tenderness?
Through every period of her anxious life
It is the same deep, holy feeling: oh
There's nought on earth so pure, so hallowed
In sickness and in sorrow I have prov'd
How tenderly she loves, how deeply feels
For th' op'ning blossom of her being.
At midnight's sleep-inviting hour I've found
Her watching at my sickly couch, untir'd,
Smoothing my pillow by her kindly care.
Such is a mother's love, - a mother's heart;
And such was hers, thrice widow'd now since he,
The light and joy of her declining years,
Was from her bosom torn, who erst would stand
Beside her knee what time the stars look'd out,
And question of his sire with such a face
As mirror'd forth his image to her eye.
Her left they on the shore, cheerless and lone,
And childless in her wo. Her wither'd hands
Convulsively she wrung, and begg'd to go:
She reck'd not of her cottage by the palm, -
Her husband's grave, - the green hills of her sires, -
Freedom or bondage, life or death, - for all
Was buried in the thought of her poor child -
The hope that she might be receiv'd to him,
To share his load of sorrows and of chains.
Oh woman, thou art mighty in thy wo;
But man's fell heart is oft a rock of ice,
Where thy fond cherish'd hopes are wreck'd and lost.
Alas! so prov'd it now; - the widow's prayer
Was spurn'd while her wild shrieks the theme were made
Of many a passing jest. The sail is spread -
Away, away, while yet the lightnings sleep:
Away; - but know ye there is One whose eye
That deed of darkness sure has register'd
And his swift ministers the el'ments are.

William P. Palmer

2:25, p. 198

1828.09.12

From a poem spoken July 4th, before the Anti-Slavery Society of Williams College