Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
Poems on SlaveryThe Witnesses
I
Half buried in the sands,
Lie skeletons in chains,
With shackled feet and hands.
Deeper than plummet lies,
Float ships, with all their crews,
No more to sink nor rise.
Freighted with human forms,
Whose fettered, fleshless limbs
Are not the sport of storms.
They gleam from the abyss;
They cry, from yawning waves,
“We are the Witnesses!”
Are markets for men’s lives;
Their necks are galled with chains,
Their wrists are cramped with gyves.
In deserts makes its prey;
Murders, that with affright
Scare school-boys from their play!
Anger, and lust, and pride;
The foulest, rankest weeds,
That choke Life’s groaning tide!
They glare from the abyss;
They cry, from unknown graves,
“We are the Witnesses!”