The Witnesses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Chained skeletons and a submerged slave ship bear imagined witness to slavery. On land, markets for human lives, fetters, murders, and unknown graves extend the accusation.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Abolitionist Literature, Poetry · 273 words
First lines
In Ocean's wide domains, / Half buried in the sands, / Lie skeletons in chains, / With shackled feet and hands.
Beyond the fall of dews, / Deeper than plummet lies, / Float ships, with all their crews, / No more to sink nor rise.
There the black Slave-ship swims, / Freighted with human forms, / Whose fettered, fleshless limbs / Are not the sport of storms.
These are the bones of Slaves; / They gleam from the abyss; / They cry, from yawning waves, / "We are the Witnesses!"
Genres
- Abolitionist Literature — The enslaved dead and the sufferings of living captives serve as witnesses against the buying, chaining, and killing of human beings.
- Poetry — Eight rhymed quatrains connect submerged bones with slavery's suffering on land through a repeated declaration of witness.
Tags
slavery · slave trade · slave ships · chains · testimony
What this Textopian page supports
The Witnesses is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Abolitionist Literature, Poetry
- Length: 273 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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