Explore "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp / The hunted Negro lay; / He saw the fire of the midnight camp, / And heard at times a horse's tramp / And a bloodhound's distant bay.
Where will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine, / In bulrush and in brake; / Where waving mosses shroud the pine, / And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine / Is spotted like the snake;
Where hardly a human foot could pass, / Or a human heart would dare, / On the quaking turf of the green morass / He crouched in the rank and tangled grass, / Like a wild beast in his lair.
A poor old slave, infirm and lame; / Great scars deformed his face; / On his forehead he bore the brand of shame, / And the rags, that hid his mangled frame, / Were the livery of disgrace.
All things above were bright and fair, / All things were glad and free; / Lithe squirrels darted here and there, / And wild birds filled the echoing air / With songs of Liberty!
On him alone was the doom of pain, / From the morning of his birth; / On him alone the curse of Cain / Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain, / And struck him to the earth!