Vermont Telegraph

Milton's Lycidas

The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out—an obstinate disease of the eyes—contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves, (only half a wine glass per day being allowed to an individual,) and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally, but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms leaped overboard, in the hope which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several who were stopped in the attempt, to be shot or hanged before their companions. The disease extended to the crew; and one after another were smitten with it until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves rendered unsaleable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned!—Speech of M. Benj. Constant in the Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820.

In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon.—The same disease had been there; and horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted: The Spanish ship has never since been heard of.—The Rodeur, reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival. Bibliotheque Opthalmologique for Nov. 1819.
Jolly ready cried the captain;
“Ay, Ay!” the seaman said—
“Heave up the worthless lubbers,
The living and the dead,”
Up from the slave-ship's prison
Fierce, bearded faces thrust,—
“Now's the best chance to try 'em
On the dead ones first!”
Corpse after corpse came up,—
Dread work had been busy there,
Where every blow is mercy,
Why should the spoiler spare?
Corpse after corpse they cast
Silently from the ships
Yet bloody with the traces
Of fetter-link and whip.
Gloomily stood the captain
With his livery on his breast,
With his cold brow, sternly knotted,
And his iron lip compressed.
“Are all the dead done over?”
Growled through that matted lip—
“The blind ones are no better,
Let's sink the good ship!”
Hark! from the ship's deck bosom,
Ten thousand thousand sighs
The roaring clank of iron,
The maniac's short, sharp yell!
The boards, low curse, throat stifled,
The knavish pilot's groan,
The horror of broken heart
Poured through a mother's moan.
Up from that loathsome prison
The stricken blind ones come
In agony, had all been darkened
Yet the holy breath of Heaven
Was sweetly breathing there,
And the spotted brow of Cover
Cooled in the soft sea air.
Overboard with them, shipmaster!
Cautiously and slow!
Jockey and blind, one after one,
Plunged down to the vessel's side.
The shark smote above,
Beneath the keen shark hies,
Waiting with wide and bloody jaw
His quick and human prey.
O God! O God! we know Thee
What or where is He?
Rang upward unto Thee?
Voices of agony and blood,
From ship-deck and from sea,
The last dread plunge was heard…
The last was caught, its stain
And the unnetted shark looked up
To see the homesick hearts in vain.
Balmy the western waters,
Setting sun was there,
Scattering alike on wave and cloud
His fiery mesh of hair.
Amidst a group in blindness
A solitary eye
Cazed, from the burden'd slaver's deck,
Into that burning sky.
“A storm,” spoke out the pilot,
“Is gathering and at hand;
Come on't, I'd give my other eye
For one fair reach of land.
And then be blind—but only
His echoed laugh replied—
“For the blinded and the suffering
Alone we wage at his side.
Knight settled on the waters,
And on a stormy heaven,
While fiercely on that lone ship's track
The thunder gust was driven.
“A sail! thank God! a sail!”
And, as the boatswain spoke,
Up through the stormy murmur
A shout of gladness broke.
Down came the stranger angel
Unheeding, on her way,
So near, that on the slaver's
Deck fell her driven spray.
“Hot for the love of mercy,
We're perishing and blind!”
A wail of utter agony
Came back upon the wind.
“Help us! For we are stricken
With blindness every
The days we've floated fearfully,
Upholding star or sun.
Our ship's the slaver Leon
We've but a score on board—
Our slaves, are all gone over—
Help for the love of God!”
On livid brows of agony
The broad red lightning shone,
But the roar of wind and thunder
Stifled the answering groan.
Wail'd from the broken waters
A last despairing cry,
As kindling in the stormy light,
In view of Gaudaloupe
A dark haired vessel
With a crew who noted there
The night-fall of the day
The bond of the brave
Waved white by every stream
I with tropic leaf, and flower,
Wore is the wave
And the sky was bright as ever,
And the moonlight slept as well
On the palm-trees by the hill-side,
And the streamlet of the dell.
And the rhymes of the Creole
Wore still as wretchedly
Thirst
And her sails a-over; crowd
Of Death
Just vain were bird and blossom
And the mime c(
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By the awful curse of God!