'All ready?' cried the captain;
⁠'Ay, Ay!' the seamen said—
'Heave up the worthless lubbers,
⁠The dying and the dead.'
Up from the slave-ship's prison
⁠Fierce, bearded heads were thrust—
'Now let the sharks look to it—
⁠Toss up the dead ones first!

Corpse after corpse came up,—
⁠Death had been busy there.
Where every blow is mercy,
⁠Why should the spoiler spare?
Corpse after corpse they cast
⁠Sullenly from the ship,
Yet bloody with the traces
⁠Of fetter-link and whip.

Gloomily stood the captain,
⁠With his arms upon his breast,
With his cold brow sternly knotted,
⁠And his iron lip compress'd.
​'Are all the dead dogs over?'
⁠Growl'd through that matted lip—
'The blind ones are no better,
⁠Let's lighten the good ship!'

Hark! from the ship's dark bosom,
⁠The very sounds of hell!
The ringing clank or iron—
⁠The maniac's short, sharp yell!
The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled—
⁠The starving infant's moan—
The horror of a breaking heart
⁠Pour'd through a mother's groan!

Up from the loathsome prison
⁠The stricken blind ones came—
Below, had all been darkness—
⁠Above, was still the same.
Yet the holy breath of Heaven
⁠Was sweetly breathing there,
And the heated brow of fever
⁠Cool'd in the soft sea-air.

'Overboard with them, shipmates!'
⁠Cutlass and dirk were plied;
Fetter'd and blind, one after one,
⁠Plunged down the vessel's side.
The sabre smote above—
⁠Beneath, the lean shark lay,
Waiting with wide and bloody jaw
⁠His quick and human prey.

​God of the earth! what cries
⁠Rang upward unto Thee?
Voices of agony and blood,
⁠From ship-deck and from sea.
The last dull plunge was heard—
⁠The last wave caught its stain—
And the unsated sharks look'd up
⁠For human hearts in vain. *⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠* Red glowed the western waters—
⁠The setting sun was there,
Scattering alike on wave and cloud
⁠His fiery mesh of hair.
Amidst a group in blindness,
⁠A solitary eye
Gazed, from the burden'd slaver's deck,
⁠Into that burning sky.

'A storm,' spoke out the gazer,
⁠'Is gathering and at hand—
Curse on 't—I'd give my other eye
⁠For one firm rood of land.
And then he laugh'd—but only
⁠His echoed laugh replied—
For the blinded and the suffering
⁠Alone were at his side.

Night settled on the waters,
⁠And on a stromy heaven,
While fiercely on that lone ship's track
⁠The thunder-gust was driven.
​'A sail!—thank God! a sail!'
⁠And, as the helmsman spoke,
Up through the stormy murmur,
⁠A shout of gladness broke.

Down came the stranger vessel
⁠Unheeding, on her way,
So near, that on the slaver's deck
⁠Fell off her driven spray.
'Ho! for the love of mercy—
⁠We're perishing and blind!'
A wail of utter agony
⁠Came back upon the wind.

'Help us! for we are stricken
⁠With blindness every one—
Ten days we've floated fearfully,
⁠Unnoting star or sun.
Our ship's the slaver Leon—
⁠We've but a score on board—
Our slaves are all gone over—
⁠Help—for the love of God!'

On livid brows of agony
⁠The broad red lightning shone—
But the roar of wind and thunder
⁠Stifled the answering groan.
Wail'd from the broken waters
⁠A last despairing cry,
As kindling in the stormy light,
⁠The stranger ship went by.

​*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠* In the sunny Gaudaloupe
⁠A dark hull'd vessel lay—
With a crew who noted never
⁠The night-fall or the day.
The blossom of the orange
⁠Waved white by every stream,
And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird,
⁠Were in the warm sun-beam.

And the sky was bright as ever,
⁠And the moonlight slipt as well,
On the palm-trees by the hill-side,
⁠And the streamlet of the dell.
And the glances of the Creole
⁠Were still as archly deep,
And her smiles as full as ever
⁠Of passion and of sleep.

But vain were bird and blossom,
⁠The green earth and the sky,
And the smile of the human faces,
⁠To the ever darken'd eye;
For, amidst a word of beauty,
⁠The slaver went abroad,
With his ghastly visage written
⁠By the awful curse of God!