Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Richard Henry Horne 180284The Slave
Horne-RiB
Indigo-tinted mountains; and ere noon
We near’d an isle that lay like a festoon,
And shar’d the ocean’s glittering repose.
Estates midst orange groves and towering trees;
Rich yellow lawns embrown’d by soft degrees;
Plots of intense gold freak’d with shady nuts.
And now a long canoe came gliding forth,
Wherein there sat an old man fierce and swarth
Tiger-faced, black-fang’d, and with jaundiced eye.
Of head-cloth ’neath straw brim, this Master wore;
While in the sun-glare stood with high-rais’d oar
A naked Image all of burnish’d gold.
His minted muscles, and his glossy skin;
Golden his life of action—but within
The slave is human in a bleeding heart.