icture's tints grew deeper,
Redder, blacker, as I gazed,
And my weak knees smote together,
And my eyes grew dim and glazed,
At the vision's spectred horrors
From the graves of vengeance raised.

For, where liveoaks and magnolias
Gloom the earth with densest shades,
Where the snake and alligator
Lurk in endless everglades,
Where the cloud-lace-fretted sunset
Lingering, longest night evades,

Where the eagle builds his eyrie
Nearest to the fervid skies,
Where the buzzard swoops to fatten
On the prey that lingering dies,
Where the bloodhound's hellish baying
Stills the hunted bondman's cries,

There uprose, all ghostly shadowed,
Hosts of wasted, haggard forms;
And their wild eyes glared and glittered
Like heaven's fire in dark-browed storms,
And with outstretched arms toward me
They came rushing in thick swarms.

And I saw upon their foreheads
Letters where the irons burned,
And their backs left gashed and harrowed
Where the lash for life-blood yearned,
And their lank limbs, fester-eaten,
Showed where gnawing shackles turned.

There were gaunt and frenzied mothers
With wan children in their arms,
There were youths, and there were maidens,
Curses, tears, and wild alarms,
There were auction blocks and hammers
Where were bartered beauty's charms.

Ah! my heart grew chill within me,
And my 'frighted blood congealed,
As my soul's eye raised the shadows
Which like curtains half concealed
Deeper horrors, depths of anguish
Left till God's day unrevealed!

And my soul went up in sighing
To God's ear: 'And _Thou_ dost know,
High and Holy! men are devils,
Earth, like hell, is drowned in woe?'
Came an answer: 'Hark! my war-blast
Dealing sin a staggering blow!'

'Father! though the chains be broken,'
Cried my soul, 'the wounds remain,
Deeper than the irons wore them,
'Neath the brow within the brain,
'Neath the body in the spirit!
Peals Thy war-blast not in vain?

'How shall knowledge, how shall virtue
Dwell with ignorance and sin?
Where is found that earthly saintship
Can consort with devils' din?
Who the saintly self-denying
Through bell's door would look within

'E'en to save the devil's victims,
Snatch them from the cooling flames,
Kiss with love their long-charred spirits,
Breathe new souls into their names,