I saw a swarthy chieftain lead his boy,

A noble stripling, full of life and joy,

And, kneel, my son," he cried, "nor lift thine eyes,
Lest thou disturb thy father's sacrifice!"

He knelt; and thus the sire his suit preferred,
While my soul shuddered at the vows I heard:
"I sue for vengeance: O my God, accord
Strength to my bow and sharpness to my sword!
Like fell hyæna may I quest my food,

Bound on the foe, and laugh, and lap his blood;
Smite down the warrior, pierce the mother's heart,
And drive the children to the Christian's mart:
They shall be his,―his more accomplished skill
In torture's arts shall work my wildest will.
Hear me, dread demon! lo, I bring my son
To buy thine aid, my child, mine only one!
Take him, and grant revenge!"-the stripling's eye
Just caught the uplifted axe-one short shrill cry!
And one stern crushing blow! The rite was sped ;-
Rolled gasping in the dust the severed head;

Whence, when I gazed again, 'twas raised, and bound

By its black locks the idol's neck around;

And down his breast the life-drops' crimson rain

Freshened the hue of many a former stain.

Alas, how foul in every dark recess,

How desperate in its native wickedness

Is man's lost soul! From Lybia's blasted earth
Full many a doleful creature draws its birth;
But search the tiger's lair, the lion's den,
Drag forth the poisonous monsters of the fen,
Bid wood and hill and desert bring their worst,
And still, above them all, sublimely curst,
The foulest, fellest of the savage clan

Erects the brow, and wields the mind of man!

I am not raving, Laura ;-nay, dear love,

It was some missioned spirit from above

That led me through the gloom, and shewed me things Passing e'en fever's wild imaginings ;

Real, awful things, that solemnly reveal

The worth of human wisdom, human zeal,

When matched with human crime. We might despair, Were there not one resource,-the silent strength of prayer.

Bear with me yet awhile; nor deem it strange,
That o'er such themes I bid my memory range.
As some glad traveller, who at evening's close
Basks in bright regions of serene repose,
Recounts the forms of ruin and of wrath
That frowned incumbent on his earlier path,
Striving, by contrast with the past, to throw
O'er present bliss a livelier, mellower glow ;
E'en thus I bid those visioned horrors rise,

To lend a keener rapture to surprise,

When the changed scene shall roll its clouds away,

And greet the sunburst of millennial day.

I saw that childless warrior once again, Brooding like vulture o'er a pile of slain :

His prayer was heard! his red eye flashed with joy,

As though the sight repaid him for his boy;

It seemed the haunting demon of his breast

Had drunk his fill of blood, and was at rest.
Listless he watched a mixed and motley crowd

Plying its various toil with clamour loud;

Some stripped the ghastly dead; some reared the pyre, While children danced around the roaring fire.

8 That was no funeral rite: a feast was drest!

And cannibals caroused!-Let silence veil the rest.

The vision changed! -Beside a galley's mast

I leaned, and wooed the freshness of the blast;
And watch'd the sunbeams, with the waves at play,
Braid their bright dance o'er Benin's purple bay;
The shore grew dim behind, and far a-lee

Heaved the broad bosom of the boundless sea;
Aloft the careless sailor's merry song

Cheered his brave vessel as she skimmed along :

-

But mine was silent joy, a dreamy feeling

Of peace, along the vacant spirit stealing.

A shock aroused me: on mine ear was thrown,
Breathed from beneath, a low and stifled moan.
Sure 'twas delusion! 'twas the the wind that gave
A deeper murmur! 'twas the booming wave!'
But, hark, once more !-alas, too sadly plain
It tells its source, the cry of human pain!
19 sought the hatchway: all below was night,
And long I tasked in vain mine aching sight:
Up rose a noisome vapour, like the breath
That issues from the charnel jaws of Death.
At length the dimness cleared, and on my view
Slowly the den's infernal secrets grew;

Condensed into one loathsome mass was rolled

The living cargo of that dungeon-hold!

Living? The dead were there! I quailed to trace

The sunken features of some stiff, still face,

Wedged in with living heads.-They raised no shriek,

For clamorous grief too wretched and too weak: