Read "Death of Zombi" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The Chief of a Negro Kingdom in South America / Cruel in vengeance, reckless in wrath, / The hunters of men bore down on our path; / Inhuman and fierce, the offer they gave / Was freedom in death or the life of a slave.
The cheek of the mother grew pallid with dread, / As the tidings of evil around us were spread, / And closer and closer she strained to her heart / The children she feared they would sever apart.
The brows of our maidens grew gloomy and sad; / Hot tears burst from eyes once sparkling and glad.
Our young men stood ready to join in the fray, / That hung as a pall 'round our people that day.
Our leaders gazed angry and stern on the strife, / For freedom to them was dearer than life.
There was mourning at home and death in the street, / For carnage and famine together did meet.
The pale lips of hunger were asking for bread, / While husbands and fathers lay bleeding and dead.
For days we withstood the tempests of wrath, / That scattered destruction and death in our path, / Till, broken and peeled, we yielded at last, / And the glory and strength of our kingdom were past.
But Zombi, our leader, and warlike old chief, / Gazed down on our woe with anger and grief; / The tyrant for him forged fetters in vain, / His freedom-girt limbs had worn their last chain.
Defiance and daring still flashed from his eye; / A freeman he'd lived and free he would die.
So he climbed to the verge of a dangerous steep, / Resolved from its margin to take a last leap; / For a fearful death and a bloody grave / Were dearer to him than the life of a slave.
Nor went he alone to the mystic land -- / There were other warriors in his band, / Who rushed with him to Death's dark gate, / All wrapped in the shroud of a mournful fate.