TO THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE AMERICANS UNDER GENERAL GREENE, IN SOUTH CAROLINA, WHO FELL IN THE ACTION OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1781
They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear - but left the shield.
Led by thy conquering genius, Greene,
The Britons they compelled to fly;
None distant viewed the fatal plain,
None grieved, in such a cause to die
But, like the Parthian, famed of old,
Who, flying, still their arrows threw,
These routed Britons, full as bold,
Retreated, and retreating slew.
Now rest in peace, our patriot band;
Though far from nature's limits thrown,
We trust they find a happier land,
A brighter sunshine of their own.
TO SIR TOBY, A SUGAR PLANTER IN THE INTERIOR PARTS OF JAMAICA, NEAR THE CITY OF SAN JAGO DE LA VEGA (SPANISH TOWN), 1784
"The motions of his spirit are black as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus."
Sir Toby's slaves enjoy that portion here:
Here are no blazing brimstone lakes
But kindled Rum too often burns as blue;
In which some fiend, whom nature must detest,
Steeps Toby's brand, and marks poor Cudjoe's breast.1
Here whips on whips excite perpetual fears,
And mingled howlings vibrate on my ears:
Here nature's plagues abound, to fret and teaze,
Snakes, scorpions, despots, lizards, centipees -
No art, no care escapes the busy lash;
All have their dues — and all are paid in cash
The eternal driver keeps a steady eye
On a black herd, who would his vengeance fly,
But chained, imprisoned, on a burning soil,
For the mean avarice of a tyrant, toil!
The lengthy cart-whip guards this monster's reign
And cracks, like pistols, from the fields of cane.
Ye powers! who formed these wretched tribes, relate,
What had they done, to merit such a fate!
Why were they brought from Eboe's' sultry waste,
To see that plenty which they must not taste
Food, which they cannot buy, and dare not steal;
'This passage has a reference to the West India custom (sanctioned by law) of branding a newly imported slave on the breast, with a red hot iron, as an evidence of the purchaser's property.
* A small negro kingdom near the river Senegal.
many a scanty meal!
One, with a gibbet wakes his negro's fears,
One to the windmill nails him by the ears;
One keeps his slave in darkened dens, unfed,
One puts the wretch in pickle ere he's dead:
This, from a tree suspends him by the thumbs,
That, from his table grudges even the crumbs!
O'er yond' rough hills a tribe of females go,
Each with her gourd, her infant, and her hoe;
Scorched by a sun that has no mercy here,
Driven by a devil, whom men call overseer
In chains, twelve wretches to their labours haste;
Twice twelve I saw, with iron collars graced !
Are such the fruits that spring from vast domains?
Is wealth, thus got, Sir Toby, worth your pains! -
Who would your wealth on terms, like these, possess,
Where all we see is pregnant with distress
Angola's natives scourged by ruffian hands,
And toil's hard product shipp'd to foreign lands.
Talk not of blossoms, and your endless spring;
What joy, what smile, can scenes of misery bring?
Though Nature, here, has every blessing spread,
Poor is the labourer and how meanly fed!
Here Stygian paintings light and shade renew,
Pictures of hell, that Virgil's1 pencil drew:
Here, surly Charons make their annual trip,
And ghosts arrive in every Guinea ship,
To find what beasts these western isles afford,
Plutonian scourges, and despotic lords:
Here, they, of stuff determined to be free,
Must climb the rude cliffs of the Liguanee;2
Beyond the clouds, in sculking haste repair,
And hardly safe from brother traitors there.3
'See Eneid, Book 6th.—and Fénelon's Telemachus, Book 18.
2 The mountains northward of Kingston.
Alluding to the Independent negroes in the blue mountains, who, for a stipulated reward, deliver up every fugitive that falls into their hands, to the English Government.
Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.
By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.
Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
THE DEATH SONG OF A CHEROKEE INDIAN
The sun sets in night, and the stars shun the day,
But glory remains when their lights fade away.
Begin, ye tormentors: your threats are in vain
For the son of Alknomock can never complain.
Remember the woods, where in ambush he lay,
And the scalps which he bore from your nation away!
Why do ye delay?— 'till I shrink from my pain?
Know the son of Alknomock can never complain..
Remember the arrows he shot from his bow,
Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low,
The flame rises high, you exult in my pain?
Know the son of Alknomock will never complain.
I go to the land where my father is gone:
His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his son,
Death comes like a friend, he relieves me from pain,
And thy son, O Alknomock, has scorned to complain.
THE INDIAN BURYING GROUND
In spite of all the learned have said,
I still my old opinion keep;
The posture, that we give the dead,
Points out the soul's eternal sleep.
Not so the ancients of these lands
The Indian, when from life released,
Again is seated with his friends,
And shares again the joyous feast.1
His imaged birds, and painted bowl,
And venison, for a journey dressed,
Bespeak the nature of the soul,
Activity, that knows no rest.
His bow, for action ready bent,
And arrows, with a head of stone,
Can only mean that life is spent,
And not the old ideas gone.
1 The North American Indians bury their dead in a sitting posture; decorating the corpse with wampum, the images of birds, quadrupeds, &c: And (if that of a warrior) with bows, arrows, tomhawks, and other military weapons.
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