Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
The African Chief
By William Cullen Bryant (17941878)C
A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude
That shrunk to hear his name,—
All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground;
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.
He was a captive now;
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow.
The scars his dark broad bosom wore
Showed warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before,
He could not be a slave.
“My brother is a king;
Undo this necklace from my neck,
And take this bracelet ring,
And send me where my brother reigns,
And I will fill thy hands
With store of ivory from the plains,
And gold-dust from the sands.”
Will I unbind thy chain;
That bloody hand shall never hold
The battle-spear again.
A price thy nation never gave
Shall yet be paid for thee;
For thou shalt be the Christian’s slave,
In lands beyond the sea.”
To shred his locks away;
And, one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.
Thick were the platted locks, and long,
And closely hidden there
Shone many a wedge of gold among
The dark and crispéd hair.
Long kept for sorest need;
Take it,—thou askest sums untold,
And say that I am freed.
Take it,—my wife, the long, long day,
Weeps by the cocoa tree,
And my young children leave their play,
And ask in vain for me.”
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife will wait thee long.”
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive’s frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.
At once his eye grew wild;
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whispered, and wept, and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
And once, at shut of day,
They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyena’s prey.