Lo! The swart chief of Afric's vergeless plains, Poor Heaven-wept child of nature's joys and pains, Mounts his fleet steed with wind-directed course, Nor checks again his free unbridled horse, But lordless, wanders where his will inclines From Tuats heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines! View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead! Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled! Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast! Ye _Christian_ Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7] Who quickly kindling to historic fire Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8] Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow, Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe, And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9] View him, ye hollow heartlings as he stalks The dauntless monarch of his native walks Breathes the warm odor which the girgir bears,[10] Shouts the fierce music of his savage airs, Or madly brave in hottest chase pursues The tawny monster of the desert dews; Eager, erect, persistent as the storm, Soul in his mien, God's image in his form! Yes, view him thus, from Kaffir to Soudan, And tell me, worldlings, is the black a man? See, the full sun emerging from the deep, Climbs with red eye, the light-illumined steep, And brightly beautiful continuous smiles A fecund blessing on those Indian Isles! Like eastern woods which sweeten as they burn, So, the parched earths to odorous flowrets turn, And feathered fayes their murmurous wings expand, Waked by the magic of his conjuror's wand, Flash their red plumes, and vocalize each dell Where browse the fecho and the dun-gazelle,[11] While half forgetful of her changing sphere, The loathful summer lingers year by year. Here, in the light of God's supernal eye-- His realms unbounded, and his woes a sigh-- The dusky son of evening placed whilcome Found with the Gnu an ever-vernal home, And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,[12] Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules, Gazed at the stars that stud yon tender blue, And hoped, and deemed the cheat of death untrue; Yet, supple sophist to a plastic mind,[13] Saw gods in woods, and spirits in the wind, Heard in the tones that stirred the waves within, The mingled voice of Hadna and Odin, Doomed the fleeced tenant of the wild to bleed A guileless votive to his harmless creed, Then gladly grateful at each rite fulfilled, Sought the cool shadow where the spring distilled, And lightly lab'rous thro' the torpid day, Whiled in sweet peace the sultry eve away.