Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in Slavery
nursed,
Last flower of a lost Eden, blooming in that Soil
accursed?
Love of Home, and Love of Woman!—dear to all,
but doubly dear
To the heart whose pulses elsewhere measure only
hate and fear.
All around the desert circles, underneath a brazen
sky,
Only one green spot remaining where the dew is
never dry!
From the horror of that desert, from its atmosphere
of hell,
Turns the fainting spirit thither, as the diver seeks
his bell.
'T is the fervid tropic noontime; faint and low the
sea-waves beat;
Hazy rise the inland mountains through the glimmer
of the heat,—
Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms, arrowy sunbeams flash and glisten, Speaks her lover to the slave-girl, and she lifts her head to listen:—
"We shall live as slaves no longer! Freedom's hour is close at hand! Rocks her bark upon the waters, rests the boat upon the strand!
"I have seen the Haytien Captain; I have seen
his swarthy crew,
Haters of the pallid faces, to their race and color
true.
"They have sworn to wait our coming till the night has passed its noon, And the gray and darkening waters roll above the sunken moon!"
Oh, the blessed hope of freedom! how with joy
and glad surprise,
For an instant throbs her bosom, for an instant
beam her eyes!