Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By African DistressTheodore Dwight (17641846)
“H
Save a mother from despair!
Cruel white men steal my children!
God of Christians, hear my prayer!
Sailors drag them to the sea;
Yonder ship, at anchor riding,
Swift will carry them away.
Fast, with thongs, his hands are bound.
See, the tyrants, how they scourge him!
See his sides a reeking wound
Quaking, trembling, how she lies!
Drops of blood her face besprinkle;
Tears of anguish fill her eyes.
Down, below the deck, he’s thrown;
Stiff with beating, through fear silent,
Save a single, death-like, groan.”
“Take me, white men, for your own!
Spare, oh, spare my darling brother!
He ’s my mother’s only son.
Down she falls upon the sands:
Now, she tears her flesh with madness;
Now, she prays with lifted hands.
He ’s a sick, and feeble boy;
Take me, whip me, chain me, starve me,
All my life I ’ll toil with joy.
Is he cruel, fierce, or good?
Does he take delight in mercy?
Or in spilling human blood?
Hear her scream upon the shore.”—
Down the savage captain struck her,
Lifeless on the vessel’s floor.
To the ocean bent his way;
Headlong plunged the raving mother,
From a high rock, in the sea.