ght my keeper too,
Who pledged his oath he would conceal what of my tale he knew.
Death came to him--he called on me the secret to unfold,
But died while he was uttering the little I have told.

"My soul was proud, nor brooked restraint--was proud, and I was young;
And with an eager joyancy I heard his flattering tongue
Proclaim me not of beggars born--yea, as he speaking died,
I--greedy--mad to know the rest--stood cursing by his side.

"I looked upon the homely garb that told my dwelling-place--
It hung upon me heavily--a token of disgrace!
I fled the house--I went to sea--was by a wretch impressed,
The stamp of whose brutality is printed on my breast.

"Like vilest slave he fettered me, my flesh the irons tore--
Scourged, mocked, and worse than buried me upon a lifeless shore,
Where human foot had never trod--upon a barren rock,
Whose caves ne'er echoed to a sound save billows as they broke.

"'Twas midnight; but the morning came. I looked upon the sea,
And a melancholy wilderness its waters were to me;
The heavens were black as yonder cloud that rolls beneath our feet,
While neither land nor living thing my eager eyes could meet.

"I naked sat upon the rock; I trembled--strove to pray;
Thrice did I see a distant sail, and thrice they bore away.
My brain with hunger maddening, as the steed the battle braves,
Headlong I plunged from the bare rock and buffeted the waves.

"Methought I saw a vessel near, and bitter were my screams,
But they died within me echoless as voices in our dreams;
For the winds were howling round me, and the suffocating gush
Of briny horrors rioted, the cry of death to crush.

"My senses fled. I lifelessly upon the ocean slept;
And when to consciousness I woke, a form before me wept.
Her face was beautiful as night; but by her side there stood
A group, whose savage glances were more dismal than the flood.

"They stood around exultingly; they snatched me from the wave--
Stole me from death--to torture me, to sell me as a slave.
She who stood o'er me weeping was a partner of my chains.
We were sold, and separation bled my heart with deeper pains.

"I knew not what her birth had been, but loved her with a love
Which nor our tyrant's cruelty nor mockery could move.
I saw her offered to a Moor--another purchased me;
But, Heavens! my arms once fetterless, ere midnight I was free!

"Memory, with eager eye, had marked her master's hated door--
I grasped a sabre, reached the house, and slew