THE WITNESSES
by: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882)
- N Ocean's wide domains,
- Half buried in the sands,
- Lie skeletons in chains,
- With shackled feet and hands.
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- Beyond the fall of dews,
- Deeper than plummet lies,
- Float ships, with all their crews,
- No more to sink nor rise.
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- There the black Slave-ship swims,
- Freighted with human forms,
- Whose fettered, fleshless limbs
- Are not the sport of storms.
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- These are the bones of Slaves;
- They gleam from the abyss;
- They cry, from yawning waves,
- "We are the Witnesses!"
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- Within Earth's wide domains
- Are markets for men's lives;
- Their necks are galled with chains,
- Their wrists are cramped with gyves.
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- Dead bodies, that the kite
- In deserts makes its prey;
- Murders, that with affright
- Scare school-boys from their play!
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- All evil thoughts and deeds;
- Anger, and lust, and pride;
- The foulest, rankest weeds,
- That choke Life's groaning tide!
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- These are the woes of Slaves;
- They glare from the abyss;
- They cry, from unknown graves,
- "We are the Witnesses!"
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