The Dream - A Fragment

The Dream - A Fragment

----- And fierce Oppression in my dream saw --

His victims bound in fetters at his feet:
Their eyes bent to the ground - their faces dark,
And deeply dyed with ebon, though the sun
That branded deep his mark upon their face,
Was rising on their land, though set on this.
--Scourges and frowns above them; and they fear'd
To look on all the fierceness that were seen
In savage eyes, inhospitable climes and bloody whips.

There lay a child, whose hair had been adorn'd

With fairest flow'rs of Afric's wilderness,
Now half its locks were torn, and strewn upon the shore.

A lover there - a royal youth far - borne -

His home, his kingdom, friends and crown resign'd.
The marks upon his cheek the only nigh
Of royalty, and they half hid with clotted blood.
But worse than all than home and kingdom lost -
His bride betroth'd in chains beside him lay -
The arms, whose tenderness had bound him,
Cold bands had wrung - cold, cruel iron,
Reckless as the grave, icy as death -
Like death it struck his heart to look on,
--Speechless the youth say by; and though
Speechless, he smil'd - with eyes avert long,
While a crystal brook he knew not flow'd them by-.
He smil'd, to see the wave at liberty -
Then turn'd again and fix'd his eyes upon his love.
Again he mov'd - but such a look he wore
In his dark eye which famine, pain had sunk -
I thought the wretch on whom that glance was fix'd,
Would see it till the fatal day of doom -
And even then - for ne'er was frown, nor curse,
Nor flashing steel, nor hell - invented rack,
So horrible to see, so hard t' endure.
I turn'd and said, 'tis true - a smile may be
More keen assassination to the soul,
Than all that wrath can vent in word or deed -
Judgment her meed inflicts with smile and sword.

O'er such a scene as this oppression sat:

Gold was his throne, his footstool was a rack;
His bloody scutcheon on the dripping wall,
Pictur'd in whips and fetters, iron bands
For arms and necks of men and new born babes,
Laid curiously in forms significant,
The field was gules with blood: the crest a skull.
The monarch wore a magnet in his crown,
That pointed ever at Peruvian coasts
Gold was its star - a mine in northern pole -
No other substance could its tendence change,
Save the attraction that it own'd to blood -
Blood! human gore! When that was interpos'd,
The magnet dipp'd and wander'd from its mark.

The wearer smil'd; and oft, he turn'd to see

How firm his seat was fix'd, how strong it stood;
Kingdoms he counted, in whose pow'rful aid
His heart could trust; and monarchs were his friends.
This call'd he right - because no voice could rise
T' accuse his deeds, and scarce an eye could weep,
But they were quench'd and stifled with a sword.

Agrestis

1:36, p. 144

1827.11.16