If I can do one hundredth part for the Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful.
quote by Helen Hunt Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Ten Little Indians
Ten little indian boys
The first little indian gave squaw pretty feather
(little indian boy)
The second little indian made her an indian dollar
(fighting over a squaw)
Well the third little indian gave her moccasin leather
(little indian boy)
The squaw didnt like em at all
The fourth little indian took her riding in his big canoe
(little indian boy)
The fifth little indian took her down the waterfall
(fighting over a squaw)
The sixth little indian taught the squaw how to woo-woo
(little indian boy)
But the squaw didnt like em at all
One little, two little, three little indians
(keep us humming were the ten little indians)
Four little, five little, six little indians
(keep us humming were the ten little indians)
Seven little, eight little, nine little indians
(keep us humming were the ten little indians)
Ten little indian boys
The seventh little indian took her over to his teepee
(little indian boy)
The eighth little indian tried to give her a love poem
(fighting over a squaw)
The ninth little indian said youre my kemosabe
(little indian boy)
The squaw didnt like em at all
The tenth little indian said it really didnt matter
(little indian boy)
He acted like himself and he didnt look at her
(fighting over a squaw)
The squaw didnt care if he never did a thing
(little indian boy)
Cause she loved the tenth indian boy
Loved the tenth indian boy
Loved the tenth indian boy
Loved the tenth indian boy
song performed by Beach Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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Thankful
You know my soul
You know everything about me theres to know
You know my heart
How to make me stop & how to make me go
You should know I love everything
About you dont you know
That Im thankful
For the blessing
And the lessons that Ive learned w/you
By my side
That Im thankful so thankful for the love
That you keep bringing in my life
In my life
Thankful so thankful
You know my thoughts
Before I open up my mouth & try to speak
You know my dreams
Must be listening when Im talking in my sleep
I hope you know
I love having you around me dont you know
That Im thankful for the blessing
And the lessons that Ive learned w/you
By my side
That Im thankful so thankful for the love
That you keep bringing in my life in my life
Dont you know that Im thankful for the moment
When Im down you always know how to make me smile
Thankful for the moments & the joy that your bringing to my life
For the lessons that Ive learned
For the trouble Ive known
For the heartache & pain
That youve thrown my way
When I didnt think I could go on
But you made me feel strong
With you I am never alone
Thankful so thankful
Thankful for the blessing
And the lessons that Ive learned w/you
By my side
That Im thankful so thankful for the love
That you keep bringing in my life in my life
Thankful so thankful
When Im down you always know how to make me smile
Thankful for the joys that your bringing to my life
Thankful so thankful
song performed by Kelly Clarkson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Lynching
Have you ever heard of lynching in the great United States?
'Tis an awful, awful story that the Negro man relates,
How the mobs the laws have trampled, both the human and divine,
In their killing helpless people as their cruel hearts incline.
Not the heathen! 'Tis the Christian with the Bible in his hand,
Stands for pain and death to tyrannize the weaklings of the land;
Not the red man nor the Spaniard kills the blacks of Uncle Sam,
'Tis the white man of the nation who will lunch the sons of Ham.
To a limb upon the highway does a Negro's body hang,
Riddled with a hundred bullets from the bloody, thirsty gang;
Law and order thus defying, and there's none to say them nay.
"Thus," they say, to keep their power, "Negroes must be kept at bay."
How his back is lacerated! how the scene is painted red,
By the blood of one poor Negro till he numbers with the dead!
Listen to the cry of anguish from a soul that God has made,
But it fails to reach the pity of the demons in the raid.
To a tree we find the Negro and to him a chain beside,
There a horse to it is fastened and the whip to him applied.
Thus he pulls the victim's body till it meets a dying fate,
And to history is given a new scandal to relate.
Limb from limb he's torn asunder! See the savage lynchers grin!
Then the flesh is cut in pieces and the souvenirs begin;
Each must have the piece allotted for the friends at home to see,
Relatives will cluster round him, laughing, dancing, filled with glee.
To a stake they bind the Negro, pile the trash around him high,
Make the fire about his body; it is thus that he must die.
Burn him slowly, hear the lynchers: "That's the part we most enjoy!
Tell it out in all the nation how we killed a Negro boy!"
Savage mob a Negro's chasing, and to catch him must not fail;
If it does, another's taken, there to force from him the tale
Where the fleeing man is hiding; if the facts he cannot raise,
Though his innocence protesting, for the same by death he pays.
"'Tis a Negro's blood we're craving; such will have at any cost;
We must lynch the one in keeping, for the other one is lost!"
This they say, and when they're questioned answer like this is the why,
"To the race at large a warning here a Negro man shall die!"
O, how brave the Southern white man when, a hundred men to one,
Lynch a lone, defenceless Negro, when each lyncher has a gun.
If at midnight or the noonday, the result is all the same,
Law is powerless to hinder, and the nation shares the blame.
[...] Read more
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Mogg Megone - Part I.
Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone,
Unmoving and tall in the light of the sky,
Where the spray of the cataract sparkles on high,
Lonely and sternly, save Mogg Megone?
Close to the verge of the rock is he,
While beneath him the Saco its work is doing,
Hurrying down to its grave, the sea,
And slow through the rock its pathway hewing!
Far down, through the mist of the falling river,
Which rises up like an incense ever,
The splintered points of the crags are seen,
With water howling and vexed between,
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth!
But Mogg Megone never trembled yet
Wherever his eye or his foot was set.
He is watchful: each form in the moonlight dim,
Of rock or of tree, is seen of him:
He listens; each sound from afar is caught,
The faintest shiver of leaf and limb:
But he sees not the waters, which foam and fret,
Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin wet, -
And the roar of their rushing, he bears it not.
The moonlight, through the open bough
Of the gnarl'd beech, whose naked root
Coils like a serpent at his foot,
Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow.
His head is bare, save only where
Waves in the wind one lock of hair,
Reserved for him, whoe'er he be,
More mighty than Megone in strife,
When breast to breast and knee to knee,
Above the fallen warrior's life
Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife.
Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun,
And his gaudy and tasselled blanket on:
His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid,
And magic words on its polished blade, -
'Twas the gift of Castine to Mogg Megone,
For a scalp or twain from the Yengees torn:
His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine,
And Modocawando's wives had strung
The brass and the beads, which tinkle and shine
On the polished breach, and broad bright line
Of beaded wampum around it hung.
What seeks Megone? His foes are near, -
Grey Jocelyn's eye is never sleeping,
[...] Read more
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Thankfulness
I am thankful for my family
and my friends who care about me
when I am lonely or sad
I am thankful for the one I
love and when I am not happy,
it’s my family that makes me glad
I am thankful for the things
that I have and for the life
i’m living
I am thankful for a home
That I have and for the
things that I forgive
I am thankful to have a nice
family that I like and for the
things that I have done
I am thankful to have pets
that I need and the things
that I like about you
I am thankful for my dad taking
me to basketball games and the
food that I like to make
I am thankful to have a loving sister
that I fight with sometimes but
it will not be forever
I am thankful to go to school that
sometimes don’t like to go to but
it will not be for the rest of my life
I am thankful to have a
dad that doesn’t smoke
and for him having a loving wife
I am thankful to come back
to the US and for the friends
that I miss in China
I am thankful to have a lot
of friends in China and the US
and they miss me
I am thankful to be the
tallest in my family and
my parents agree
[...] Read more
poem by Andy Lam
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Immorality
Have you heard, my friend, the slander that the Negro has to face?
Immorality, the grossest, has been charged up to his race.
Listen, listen to my story, as I now proceed to tell
Of conditions in the Southland, where the mass of Negroes dwell.
Ev'ry city, town or county, ev'ry state on Southern soil,
Has mulattoes in its borders, found among the sons of toil.
Can you tell from whence they landed; or to whither shall they go?
Is the Negro race responsible alone, I'd like to know?
When a man among the Negroes is the least suspected there
Of an intimate relation with a daughter that is fair,
Then an angry mob arises and he answers for the same
In a death, the worst in cruelty the company can name.
Though the noonday sun is shining at the time the lynching's done,
Still the officers of justice can't detect a single one,
Who partook in Negro killing, for the deed no one is blamed,
And inside the nation's senate comes a voice, 'We're not ashamed.'
Is the same true when a white man leads a Negro girl astray?
When he takes away her virtue, is the same true? tell me, pray,
Do the press and pulpit clamor or condemn the mighty wrong?
Is there sentiment against it? is the burden of my song.
When the case is thus presented, they are silent as the grave,
And the law at once is powerless a Negro's name to save,
So you see the same continues and the truth is like a flood,
That in veins of Southern Negroes flow the best of Southern blood.
Can you tell of these mulattoes, did they fall here from the sky?
How is this that they're among us? can you tell the reason why?
Who's to blame for their existence? is the Negro race alone?
If there are such freaks in nature it is time to make them known.
'Tis a custom born of slavery when master's law and might,
Was enforced upon the bondsman without question of the right,
And the parson preached on Sunday how the servant should obey
All the mandates of the master, let them be whate'er they may.
O, how sad the tales of bondage when persuasive measures failed,
How they tortured Negro women till their hellish plans prevailed!
Women faithful to their virtue were as martyrs sent to rest,
Others yielded to the tempter, weary, helpless and distressed.
So the spirit lives at present for the master hand to rule,
Cook or washer, nurse or housemaid passes through this training school,
Lo! the greatest of temptations, men and devils there invent,
And present them to the servants, on their ruin so intent.
[...] Read more
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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What Part Of Life Are You Living
What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.
And what part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.
What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
And what part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.
What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you willing to live.
What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you willing to live.
What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.
What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you willing to live.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life is a drive by.
And...
What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Be Thankful
(by c. jackson & m. yancy)
You may be in a big city or drivin down a country lane, yeah
Workin two jobs to make a livin
And all you do is complain, well
You should be thankful of what you got
Yes, you should be thankful of all you got
Wakin up in the mornin seein the sun rise (well, well)
Is enough to say I thank you, lord
Rollin over seein my babys eyes, uh
Is enough to say I thank you, lord
I just wanna say thank you (thank you)
Thank you (thank you) thank you, thank you, lord
(thank you) thank you (thank you) thank you
(thank you) thank you, lord---
Be thankful of what you got (you know you should)
Be thankful of all you got
You may live in the valley, you may live on the highest hill
Some people say you dont do nothin but take the doctors pills
You may be in a nursery, in a classroom
Drivin your big fine car, hup!
Airplanes, uh, take you uh far
Layin out in the sun, uh
Or just workin on the run
Hoo, you should be thankful
Of what you got, I know you should
Be thankful, oh, yeah, of all you got
(well, well) yeah----, ooh, oh
(be thankful) we need to be thankful
(of what you got) of everything we got
(be thankful) we need to be more thankful
(of all you got) of everything you got
(be thankful) thank you, thank you, thank you
(of all you got) thank you for all I got
(be thankful) thank you....
song performed by Natalie Cole
Added by Lucian Velea
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Jim Crow Cars
If within the cruel Southland you have chanced to take a ride,
You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro's pride,
How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives,
Gets the worst accommodations ev'ry friend of truth believes.
'Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train,
Practice gross discriminations on the Negro—such is plain—
If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are,
Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car.
'Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please,
In the white man's car or Negro's will they move with perfect ease,
If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out
Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about.
They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there,
Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols,rant and swear,
They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar;
'Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car.
If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough,
At some station he's arrested for the same, though not enough,
He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon's rage,
Mobbed, of course, by 'unknown parties,' thus is closed the darkened page.
If a lunatic is carried, white or black, it is the same,
Or a criminal is taken to the prison-house in shame,
In the Negro car he's ushered with the sheriff at his side,
Out of deference for white men in their car he scorns to ride.
We despise a Negro's manhood, says the Southland, and expect,
All supremacy for white men—black men's rights we'll not protect,
This the Negro bears with patience for the nation bows to might,
Wrong has borne aloft its colors disregarding what is right.
This is called a Christian nation, but we fail to understand,
How the teachings of the Bible can with such a system band;
Purest love that knows no evil can alone the story tell,
How to banish such abuses, how to treat a neighbor well.
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Legend of La Brea
Down beside the loathly Pitch Lake,
In the stately Morichal,
Sat an ancient Spanish Indian,
Peering through the columns tall.
Watching vainly for the flashing
Of the jewelled colibris;
Listening vainly for their humming
Round the honey-blossomed trees.
'Few,' he sighed, 'they come, and fewer,
To the cocorite bowers;
Murdered, madly, through the forests
Which of yore were theirs-and ours
By there came a negro hunter,
Lithe and lusty, sleek and strong,
Rolling round his sparkling eyeballs,
As he loped and lounged along.
Rusty firelock on his shoulder;
Rusty cutlass on his thigh;
Never jollier British subject
Rollicked underneath the sky.
British law to give him safety,
British fleets to guard his shore,
And a square of British freehold-
He had all we have, and more.
Fattening through the endless summer,
Like his own provision ground,
He had reached the summum bonum
Which our latest wits have found.
So he thought; and in his hammock
Gnawed his junk of sugar-cane,
Toasted plantains at the fire-stick,
Gnawed, and dozed, and gnawed again.
Had a wife in his ajoupa -
Or, at least, what did instead;
Children, too, who died so early,
He'd no need to earn their bread.
Never stole, save what he needed,
From the Crown woods round about;
Never lied, except when summoned-
Let the warden find him out.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Kingsley
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Thanksgiving
Let us give thanks to God above,
Thanks for expressions of His love,
Seen in the book of nature, grand
Taught by His love on every hand.
Let us be thankful in our hearts,
Thankful for all the truth imparts,
For the religion of our Lord,
All that is taught us in His word.
Let us be thankful for a land,
That will for such religion stand;
One that protects it by the law,
One that before it stands in awe.
Thankful for all things let us be,
Though there be woes and misery;
Lessons they bring us for our good-
Later 'twill all be understood.
Thankful for peace o'er land and sea,
Thankful for signs of liberty,
Thankful for homes, for life and health,
Pleasure and plenty, fame and wealth.
Thankful for friends and loved ones, too,
Thankful for all things, good and true,
Thankful for harvest in the fall,
Thankful to Him who gave it all.
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored
Thomas
To India! Yea, here I may take ship;
From here the courses go over the seas,
Along which the intent prows wonderfully
Nose like lean hounds, and tack their journeys out,
Making for harbours as some sleuth was laid
For them to follow on their shifting road.
Again I front my appointed ministry. --
But why the Indian lot to me? Why mine
Such fearful gospelling? For the Lord knew
What a frail soul He gave me, and a heart
Lame and unlikely for the large events. --
And this is worse than Baghdad! though that was
A fearful brink of travel. But if the lots,
That gave to me the Indian duty, were
Shuffled by the unseen skill of Heaven, surely
That fear of mine in Baghdad was the same
Marvellous Hand working again, to guard
The landward gate of India from me. There
I stood, waiting in the weak early dawn
To start my journey; the great caravan's
Strange cattle with their snoring breaths made steam
Upon the air, and (as I thought) sadly
The beasts at market-booths and awnings gay
Of shops, the city's comfortable trade,
Lookt, and then into months of plodding lookt.
And swiftly on my brain there came a wind
Of vision; and I saw the road mapt out
Along the desert with a chalk of bones;
I saw a famine and the Afghan greed
Waiting for us, spears at our throats, all we
Made women by our hunger; and I saw
Gigantic thirst grieving our mouths with dust,
Scattering up against our breathing salt
Of blown dried dung, till the taste eat like fires
Of a wild vinegar into our sheathèd marrows;
And a sudden decay thicken'd all our bloods
As rotten leaves in fall will baulk a stream;
Then my kill'd life the muncht food of jackals. --
The wind of vision died in my brain; and lo,
The jangling of the caravan's long gait
Was small as the luting of a breeze in grass
Upon my ears. Into the waiting thirst
Camels and merchants all were gone, while I
Had been in my amazement. Was this not
A sign? God with a vision tript me, lest
Those tall fiends that ken for my approach
[...] Read more
poem by Lascelles Abercrombie
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Soboba
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soccer camp fall 2007 dallas tx
[...] Read more
poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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The Ballad Of Ira Hayes
Gather round you people and a story I will tell
About a brave young indian you should remember well
From the tribe of pima indians, a proud and a peaceful band
They farmed the phoenix valley in arizona land
Down their ditches for a thousand years the sparkling water rushed
Till their white man stole their water rights and the running water hushed
Now iras folks were hungry and their farms wene crops of weeds
But when war came he volunteers and forgot, the white mans greed
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
They started up iwo jima hill, 250 men
But only 27 lived to walk back down that hill again
And when the fight was over and the old glory raised
One of the men who held it high was the indian ira hayes
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
Now ira returned a hero, celebrated throughout the land
He was wined and speeched and honored, everybody shook his hand
But he was just a pima indian, no money crops, no chance
And at home nobody cared what ira had done and the wind did the indians
Dance
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
And ira started drinking hard, jail was often his home
They let him raise the flag there and lower it like youd throw a dog a bone
He died drunk early one morning, alone in the land he had fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch was the grave for ira hayes
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, but his land is still as dry
And his ghost is lying thirsty in the ditch where ira died
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prejudice
How strangely blind is prejudice, the Negro's greatest foe!
It never fails to see the wrong but naught of good can know.
'Tis blind to all that's lofty, yea, to truth it is opposed,
Degrading things will ope his eyes, while good will keep them closed.
How cruel, too, is prejudice! how wicked is the tongue!
The evils reign supremely there, the bad is ever sung;
With some the Negro needs a soul, with others he's a brute,
In silence those remaining live and naught of this dispute.
The schools it legislates against, in keeping Negroes down,
Whatever tends to elevate it meets it with a frown.
It gives to them the Jim Crow car and vessels on the sea;
It makes the stockade to exist and take their liberty.
It makes the press to vacillate up the Negro's name,
The pulpit makes a compromise with evil, for the same,
It makes the Pharaohs of today and seals them with its ban,
It strives to close the door of hope upon the Negro man.
It causes mobs to formulate, to come and go at will,
At morning, evening, noon or night, a Negro man to kill,
It brings injustice to the courts when Negro men are tried,
It wrings the ballot from their hands—a thousand wrongs beside.
It is the country's greatest curse, the nation's open sore,
It slowly saps the precious life, is poison to the core,
Such ravages gave certain death to nations in the past,
The same will lay this country low, its fondest hopes will blast.
It minimizes all that's good and magnifies the ill,
The devil's mission upon earth, it clamors to fulfill;
'Twas prejudice that caused the death of Christ upon the tree,
He knows the pangs that Negroes feel and gives them sympathy.
When men refuse to see the light a darkness is assured,
Such blindness comes upon the scene as never can be cured!
Contagious is the dread disease, for Negroes learn to view
The white man with suspicious eyes, but here's a thing that's new.
The Negro Problem of the land, and all the same entails,
Will be no more whene'er we find a sentiment prevails,
To bury prejudice so deep it never can arise
Till all the races of the earth shall meet above the skies.
Twas God who made the Negro black, the reasons are His own
One blood the nations all the same, the facts are too well known,
He also made the Golden Rule, to use the neighbor well,
Shall prejudice among us dwell forever? who can tell?
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Toussaint L’Ouverture
'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile
With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down
Its beauty on the Indian isle, —
On broad green field and white-walled town;
And inland waste of rock and wood,
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam,
Soft as the landscape of a dream.
All motionless and dewy wet,
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met:
The myrtle with its snowy bloom,
Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom, —
The white cecropia's silver rind
Relieved by deeper green behind,
The orange with its fruit of gold,
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold,
The passion-flower, with symbol holy,
Twining its tendrils long and lowly,
The rhexias dark, and cassia tall,
And proudly rising over all,
The kingly palm's imperial stem,.
Crowned with its leafy diadem,
Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade,
The fiery-winged cucullo played!
How lovely was thine aspect, then,
Fair island of the Western Sea!
Lavish of beauty, even whe
Thy brutes were happier than thy men,
For they, at least, were free!
Regardless of thy glorious clime,
Unmindful of thy soil of flowers,
The toiling negro sighed, that Time
No faster sped his hours.
For, by the dewy moonlight still,
He fed the weary-turning mill,
Or bent him in the chill morass,
To pluck the long and tangled grass,
And hear above his scar-worn back
The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack:
While in his heart one evil thought
In solitary madness wrought,
One baleful fire surviving still
The quenching of the immortal mind,
One sterner passion of his kind,
Which even fetters could not kill,
The savage hope, to deal, erelong,
A vengeance bitterer than his wrong!
Hark to that cry! long, loud, and shrill,
From field and forest, rock and hill,
Thrilling and horrible it rang,
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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Lascar
I.
"Another day, Ah! me, a day
"Of dreary Sorrow is begun!
"And still I loath the temper'd ray,
"And still I hate the sickly Sun!
"Far from my Native Indian shore,
"I hear our wretched race deplore;
"I mark the smile of taunting Scorn,
"And curse the hour, when I was born!
"I weep, but no one gently tries
"To stop my tear, or check my sighs;
"For, while my heart beats mournfully,
"Dear Indian home, I sigh for Thee!
"Since, gaudy Sun! I see no more
"Thy hottest glory gild the day;
"Since, sever'd from my burning shore,
"I waste the vapid hours away;
"O! darkness come ! come, deepest gloom!
"Shroud the young Summer's op'ning bloom;
"Burn, temper'd Orb, with fiercer beams
"This northern world ! and drink the streams
"That thro' the fertile vallies glide
"To bathe the feasted Fiends of Pride!
"Or, hence, broad Sun ! extinguish'd be!
"For endless night encircles Me!
"What is, to me, the City gay?
"And what, the board profusely spread?
"I have no home, no rich array,
"No spicy feast, no downy bed!
"I, with the dogs am doom'd to eat,
"To perish in the peopled street,
"To drink the tear of deep despair;
"The scoff and scorn of fools to bear!
"I sleep upon a bed of stone,
"I pace the meadows, wild--alone!
"And if I curse my fate severe,
"Some Christian Savage mocks my tear!
"Shut out the Sun, O! pitying Night!
"Make the wide world my silent tomb!
"O'ershade this northern, sickly light,
"And shroud me, in eternal gloom!
"My Indian plains, now smiling glow,
"There stands my Parent's hovel low,
"And there the tow'ring aloes rise
"And fling their perfumes to the skies!
"There the broad palm Trees covert lend,
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poem by Mary Darby Robinson
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Fragments Of An Unfinished Drama
Scene.--Before the Cavern of the Indian Enchantress.
The Enchantress comes forth.
Enchantress.
He came like a dream in the dawn of life,
He fled like a shadow before its noon;
He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife,
And I wander and wane like the weary moon.
O, sweet Echo, wake,
And for my sake
Make answer the while my heart shall break!
But my heart has a music which Echo's lips,
Though tender and true, yet can answer not,
And the shadow that moves in the soul's eclipse
Can return not the kiss by his now forgot;
Sweet lips! he who hath
On my desolate path
Cast the darkness of absence, worse than death!
The Enchantress makes her spell: she is answered by a Spirit.
Spirit.
Within the silent centre of the earth
My mansion is; where I have lived insphered
From the beginning, and around my sleep
Have woven all the wondrous imagery
Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world;
Infinite depths of unknown elements
Massed into one impenetrable mask;
Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins
Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron.
And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven
I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds,
And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns
In the dark space of interstellar air.
ANOTHER SCENE
Indian Youth and Lady.
Indian.
And, if my grief should still be dearer to me
Than all the pleasures in the world beside,
Why would you lighten it?-
Lady.
I offer only
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Courtship of Miles Standish, The
I
MILES STANDISH
In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber, --
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window:
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not Angles, but Angels."
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the Mayflower.
Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.
"Look at these arms," he said, "the war-like weapons that hang here
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,
Well I remember the day! once save my life in a skirmish;
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses."
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!"
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:
"Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Missionary - Canto Eighth
The morn returns, and, reddening, seems to shed
One ray of glory on the patriot-dead.
Round the dark stone, the victor-chiefs behold!
Still on their locks the gouts of gore hang cold!
There stands the brave Caupolican, the pride
Of Chili, young Lautaro, by his side!
Near the grim circle, pendent from the wood,
Twelve hundred Spanish heads are dripping blood.
Shrill sound the notes of death: in festive dance,
The Indian maids with myrtle boughs advance;
The tinkling sea-shells on their ancles ring,
As, hailing thus the victor-youth, they sing:--
SONG OF INDIAN MAIDS.
Oh, shout for Lautaro, the young and the brave!
The arm of whose strength was uplifted to save,
When the steeds of the strangers came rushing amain,
And the ghosts of our fathers looked down on the slain!
'Twas eve, and the noise of the battle was o'er,
Five thousand brave warriors were cold in their gore;
When, in front, young Lautaro invincible stood,
And the horses and iron-men rolled in their blood!
As the snows of the mountain are swept by the blast,
The earthquake of death o'er the white men has passed;
Shout, Chili, in triumph! the battle is won,
And we dance round the heads that are black in the sun!
Lautaro, as if wrapt in thought profound,
Oft turned an anxious look inquiring round.
He is not here!--Say, does my father live?
Ere eager voices could an answer give,
With faltering footsteps and declining head,
And slowly by an aged Indian led,
Wounded and weak the mountain chief appears:
Live, live! Lautaro cried, with bursting tears,
And fell upon his neck, and, kissing, pressed,
With folding arms, his gray hairs to his breast.
Oh, live! I am thy son--thy long-lost child!
The warrior raised his look, and faintly smiled;
Chili, my country, is avenged! he cried:
My son!--then sunk upon a shield--and died.
Lautaro knelt beside him, as he bowed,
And kissed his bleeding breast, and wept aloud.
The sounds of sadness through the circle ran,
When thus, with lifted axe, Caupolican:
What, for our fathers, brothers, children, slain,
Canst thou repay, ruthless, inhuman Spain?
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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