A Race To Doom
Detest diffuses gladness, crushes love or represses pain,
Feels not thine hardened breast a horrid bliss inside this brain
In the wild shriek of anguish? in the groan of brutal choice?,
Of speechless misery? Hence expressed with thy tyrant voice
Dear to the heart is freedom's way of burning a generous flame,
Indignant rushes, and asserts her rights; through the passivists claim
But for this nameless transport, thou has found a sept,
A gloomy substitute, on the contrary of the depths
Of loathsome dungeons, manacles, and chains and shackles,
Can't draw strange pleasure through paintings of black birds and grackles
We walk the weary stretch of two yellow strips painted and sewed,
While the breeze weaves the leaves, into this winding road.
And fair, and artful, the cultured train obstructed the tracks,
That wound the snare round Africa's thoughtless son's pick axe
And dragged them to perdition. In their eyes wept a song,
Bright shine the splendid stores; sadness crept around the throng
The wondering natives; and with strange peculiar delight,
Gaze on thier novel beauties; as they commend the horrid contrite
New wishes rise which, gratified in part earned them a stay,
And part restrained, intensive contention heightened by delay
Vibrant chimes wake the dread lust of having a no-good family,
Of rich, or rare, for ornament, or use of holy sanity
Which they can't afford, they gladly resign; but still unbought,
Remains only the shining treasure, far beyond of what we sought
In the poor native's estimate; his bow would strike the hay,
His reedy arrows, or the blood dappled skin of his wanted prey
Won from the leopard in the dangerous race to demise,
Mean time impetuous rose the fierce desire of impulsive lies
And, like a sudden deluge, floods swept along the coast,
The sense of right uncultured nature gave for them to survive a hoax
Thus blasted were the joys of private life; all upstrung,
And the fair fruit of confidence, became rotten and the tied vines undone
A canker in its core, that all unseen through these showers,
Changed from a beloved potion to poison turned its salutary powers
But these were trivial injuries, they became confined with age,
To private wrong; outlashed and killed like the fever's rage
Sought but precarious victims for their prey was a hell,
But soon the epidemic madness of this sadness would swell
To pestilential fury, and involved through a flower's bloom,
Surrounding nations in one hell of a fight to general doom.
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