Upward he turns his lustre-lacking eyes,
Where to his claim the forked-flash replies.
Now troops of murders, hovering o'er his head,
Shake the task master's inmost soul with dread-
Confusion! cries he, and his arm uprears,
While coursing down his brow the drop appears.
Mute stood the helmsman, as the sullen gale
Shook with its hollow blast the leafy vale;
And with his savage howling, answering soon,
The wolf was heard to bay the fading moon.
High on a crag, where parting rocks divide,
And yield a passage to the rushing tide,
A wreathing oak uprear'd its bulky form,
That seem'd to offer shelter from the storm.
Thither the boat they ply, and refuge seek
From the tall crevic'd-crag's impending steep.
When sudden all the elements conspire
The tree to whelm:-its crest the flashes fire
The banks re-echo-night in horror burns,
Earth and the flood-the air to chaos turns- 2150
This way and that the lumbering branches bend,
The upheav'd roots the crag asunder rend,
The crew beneath in vain attempt to fly,
Wild is their awe, and mingled their last cry.
As rose the tempest Yarrow gain'd the shore, 2155 And dripping listen'd to the watery roar ;
Fix'd like an ebon statue there he stood,
And gaz'd with phrenzied air upon the flood-
Turning, he heard great Nature's pitying hand
Roll the dark mass of ruin o'er the band,
And Freedom calling out his hopes to cheer,
And echo dallying with the voice so dear-
Then the boy felt his soul with warmth endow'd,
And to the skies his grateful bosom bow'd.
"Tis noon-and, from the Alleghany's brow, 2165 The slave secluded views the world below,
And hears the busy hum, the shout, the glee,
Of those whom instinct bids the wretched flee.
With folded arms and head supinely laid,
The negro wept beneath the locust's shade;
A crystal brook, with life and freshness fraught,
The mute partaker of his sorrows sought,
Who, having trac'd a weary length of way,
Was thirsty from the parching glare of day,
And, as he lapp'd the rill with eager tongue,
O'er the toil'd dog his master tearful hung.
For a brief hour the hostile world's wide space
Yields to the hunted slave a resting place;
To the wash'd-strand his ardent wishes fly,
And the great deep is spread to fancy's eye,
Now here, now there, the swift ideas roll,
And travel with a bound from pole to pole.
Musing he lies, till, with her light of love,
Vesper invites through glimmering glades to rove,
But ere he goes, the boughs that o'er him bend 2185
Their wreathing leaves, a sylvan vesture lend;
The verdant cincture round his loins he binds,
Descends the hill, and through the valley winds.
Another day, another night has roll'd,
And now a touching scene his eyes behold 2190
His dog grown weary in his arms he bears,
With voice consoling o'er the tangled briars,
Till in decay he lifts his fading eyes,
And on his master's bosom fondly dies.
Then the boy's hands a tender tribute yield:
A trench he open'd in the verdant field,
And, sorrowing o'er his last remains, survey'd,
As in the earth his faithful friend he laid.
Drooping of heart in solitude he roves,
Through silent Nature's unfrequented groves, 2200
Starts with new terror when the distant horn
The wild deer rouses o'er the dews of morn,
And eyes with bristling dread the sandy ground,
Where the fresh print of human step is found.
Yet still attending Freedom, firm in mien,
His pace sustains, determin'd, though serene,
And Hope, fair goddess, soothing in her sway,
Points through the deep gloom to a sunny ray,
Her tresses waves, and smiles his grief away.
Thy summits, Alleghany, crost with pain,
Grim phantoms vanish, joy adorns the plain,
And when again the glorious fount of day
Spreads o'er the laughing skies his golden ray,
He hails the State whose genius, from above,
Embraces all in one great league of love.*
Still schemes of safety in his mind arise,
And to the billow-beaten shore he flies;
The Quakers of Pennsylvania, who feel an abstract hatred of slavery, have formed themselves into a brotherhood of mercy to facilitate the escape of runaway negroes, and conferred on their soil almost an inherent efficacy of redemption.
There, as the young day broke, in mournful plight, From the tall cliff he cast around his sight,
And every billow of the deep survey'd
To catch some speck that hope with sails array'd.
On his bare arm his drooping head reclin❜d,
Wild wav'd his raven tresses to the wind;
The swallow dash'd beside him, and the deer
Brows'd the salt shrub,* and ey'd him without fear.
With transport soon, as on the rock he lay,
He saw a white-wing'd vessel mount the spray,
Whose brave crew watchful, from the briny deep
Decry the outcast on the wave-wash'd steep-
The wretched black boy, hungry, faint, forlorn, 2230
Now suppliant bending, with his hands upborne.
Then shake the sails, and from the sculptur'd stern
The boat descends-his wants-his woes to learn-
Touch'd with his tale, they succour lend the slave,
And Yarrow finds a home upon the wave.t
* The inordinate love of American quadrupeds for salted herbage has been consulted by Nature in the interior of the Continent by the "licks," or salt-springs, which she has abundantly supplied.
The enormities exposed in this tale can have no application to the American States north of the Potomac, and the Ohio; whose inhabitants view slavery with abhorrence, and concur unanimously in the desire of wrenching the whip from the hands of oppression.
|
