Explore "Cast for Lag" by Sheila Kaye-Smith on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the Pamunkey's pine-fringed shore -- / Lord! how drear is the torrent's roar! / Sits the gentleman rum-pad, slave, / Watching the leap of the restless wave, / And sighing for his Jenny.
Cast for lag was this scampsman bold, / Flung in a slaver's stinking hold, / Kicked and flogged like a vagrant cur -- / That was hard on a gentleman, Sir, / Who sighed for pretty Jenny.
Bought by a planter and driven away / Many a mile on a sweltering day, / Lashed to a negro, foul and black, / Each time I stumbled the whip on my back, / Lord! how I sighed for Jenny.
Set to work in the sugar canes, / Hunger, thirst, and the sun's hot pains, / Bed at night with a filthy crew, / Tumble and toss and sweat and stew, / And wretched dreams of Jenny.
Thus the miserable days go by, / Grinding toil 'neath a torrid sky, / Pain and hate, thirst and hunger wild, / Tears at night like a beaten child -- / Pray for me, pretty Jenny!