blood,--
Who've seen the lights of hope all die,
As stars fade from a morning sky,--
They've gathered there, in that dark hour--
The latest of the tyrant's power,--
An hour that speaketh of the day
Which never more shall pass away,--
The glorious day beyond the grave,
Which knows no master--owns no slave.
And there, too, are the rack--the wheel--
The torturing screw--the piercing steel,--
Grim powers of death all crusted o'er
With other victims' clotted gore.
Frowning they stand, and in their cold,
Silent solemnity, unfold
The strong one's triumph o'er the weak--
The awful groan--the anguished shriek--
The unconscious mutt'rings of despair--
The strained eyeball's idiot stare--
The hopeless clench--the quiv'ring frame--
The martyr's death--the despot's shame.
The rack--the tyrant--victim,--all
Are gathered in that Judgment Hall.
Draw we the veil, for 'tis a sight
But friends can gaze on with delight.
The sunbeams on the rack that play,
For sudden terror flit away
From this dread work of war and death,
As angels do with quickened breath,
From some dark deed of deepest sin,
Ere they have drunk its spirit in.

* * * * *

No mighty host with banners flying,
Seems fiercer to a conquered foe,
Than did those gallant heroes dying,
To those who gloated o'er their woe;--
Grim tigers, who have seized their prey,
Then turn and shrink abashed away;
And, coming back and crouching nigh,
Quail 'neath the flashing of the eye,
Which tells that though the life has started,
The will to strike has not departed.

* * * * *

Sad was your fate, heroic band!
Yet mourn we not, for yours' the stand
Which will secure to you a fame,
That never dieth, and a name
That will, in coming ages, be
A signal word for Liberty.
Upon the slave's o'erclouded sky,
Your gallant actions traced the bow,
Which whispered of deliv'rance nigh--
The meed of one decisive blow.
Thy coming fame, Oge! is sure;
Thy name with that of L'Ouverture,
And all the noble souls that stood
With both of you, in times of blood,
Will live to be the tyrant's fear--