Explore "The Witnesses" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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!"
Within Earth's wide domains / Are markets for men's lives; / Their necks are galled with chains, / Their wrists are cramped with gyves.
Dead bodies, that the kite / In deserts makes its prey; / Murders, that with affright / Scare school-boys from their play!
All evil thoughts and deeds; / Anger, and lust, and pride; / The foulest, rankest weeds, / That choke Life's groaning tide!
These are the woes of Slaves; / They glare from the abyss; / They cry, from unknown graves, / "We are the Witnesses!