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