Beneath these banks, along this shore, And underneath the waters, more Forgotten corpses rest; More bones by cruelty consigned
To death, than shall be told mankind To chill the feeling breast: More bones of those who, dying here In floating dungeons, anchored near,
A prey to fierce disease, Than fame in her recording page Will tell some late enquiring age, When telling things like these.
Ah me! what ills, what sighs, what groans, What spectre forms, what moving moans, What woes on woes were found; When here oppressed, insulted, crossed,
The vigour of the soul was lost In miseries thickening round. The youths of firm undaunted mind, To climate nor to coast confined,
All misery taught to bear — I saw them, as the sail they spread, I saw them by misfortune led To capture, and to care.
Though night and storms were round them cast, They climbed the well-supported mast, And reefed the fluttering sail; Though thunders roared and lightnings glared,
They toil, nor death, nor danger feared, They braved the loudest gale.— Great Cause, that brought them all their woe: Thou, Freedom!— bade their spirits glow;
But forced, at last, to yield, Died in despair each sickening crew: They vanished from the world — but you, Columbia, kept the field.
They sunk, unpitied, in their bloom,— They scarcely found a shallow tomb To hide the naked bones: For, feeble was the nervous hand
That once could toil, or once command The force of Neptune's sons. In aid of that immortal cause Which spurned at England's tyrant laws,
These passed the troubled main; They dared the seas she called her own, To meet the ruffians of a throne, And honour's purpose gain.
All generous — while that power was proved, To war the brave adventurers moved, And catched the seaman's art, Met on their own domain, the crew
Of foreign slaves, that never knew The independent heart. Thou, Independence, vast design; The efforts of the brave were thine,
When doubtful all, and dark; It was a chaos to explore; It seemed all sea, without a shore, Nor on that sea an ark.
For You, the young, the firm, the brave, Too often met an early grave, Unnoticed and unknown: On naked shores were seen to lie,
In scorching heats were doomed to die With agonizing groan. By strength, or chance, if some survived Disease, which hosts of life deprived,
That life they should devote, To venture all in Freedom's cause, To combat tyrants, and their laws, So felt near this sad spot.
Yes — and the spirit which began, ( We swear by all that's great in man ) That spirit shall go on, To brighten and illume the mind,
‘ Till tyrants vanish from mankind And Tyranny is Done.
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