Stanzas

Written at the foot of Monte Souffriere, near the Town of Basseterre, Guadaloupe

These Indian isles, so green and gay In summer seas by nature placed-- Art hardly told us where they lay, 'Till tyranny their charms defaced: Ambition here her efforts made, And avarice rifled every shade.

Their genius wept, his sons to see By foreign arms untimely fall, And some to distant climates flee, Where later ruin met them all: He saw his sylvan offspring bleed, That envious natures might succeed.

The Chief, who first o'er untried waves To these fair islands found his way, Departing, left a race of slaves, Cortez, your mandate to obey, And these again, if fame says true, To extirpate the vulgar crew.

No more to Indian coasts confined, The Patron, thus, indulged his grief; And to regret his heart resigned, To see some proud European chief, Pursue the harmless Indian race, Torn by his dogs in every chace.

Ah, what a change! the ambient deep No longer hears the lover's sigh; But wretches meet, to wail and weep The loss of their dear liberty: Unfeeling hearts possess these isles, Man frowns--and only nature smiles.

Proud of the vast extended shores The haughty Spaniard calls his own, His selfish heart restrains his stores, To other climes but scarcely known: His Cuba lies a wilderness, Where slavery digs what slaves possess.

Jamaica's sweet, romantic vales In vain with golden harvests teem; Her endless spring, her fragrant gales More than Elysian magic seem: Yet what the soil profusely gave Is there denied the toiling slave.

Fantastic joy and fond belief Through life support the galling chain; Hope's airy prospects banish griefs, And bring his native lands again: His native groves a heaven display, The funeral is the jocund day.

For man oppressed and made so base, In vain from Jove fair virtue fell; Distress be-glooms the toiling race, They have no motive to excel: In death alone their miseries end, The tyrant's dread--is their best friend.

How great their praise let truth declare, Who touched with honour's sacred flame, Bade freedom to some coasts repair To urge the slave's neglected claim; And scorning interest's swinish plan, Gave to mankind the rights of man.

Ascending there, may freedom's sun In all his force serenely clear, A long, unclouded circuit run, Till little tyrants disappear; And a new race, not bought or sold, Rise from the ashes of the old.

Published in the Freeman's Journal of Jan. 31, 1787, with the introduction "The following verses, wrote by Mr. Freneau are subjoined to a short and accurate account of the West Indies in the printer's Pocket Almanac for the present year." The title of the poem suffered many variations in later editions. In the 1788 edition, where it was reprinted from the Journal, it was entitled "Stanzas written In a blank leaf of Burke's History of the West India Islands," and it was signed "Pennsylvania, 1786." In the 1795 edition it was entitled "Caribbeana," and in the edition of 1809, the text of which I have followed, it received the title above given. The poem was carefully revised for the edition of 1795.

"While he to tears his heart resign'd With pain he saw the falling leaf; 'And thus (he cry'd) our reign must end, We, like the leaves, must now descend.'" Ed. 1788.

"No other world may share those stores To other worlds so little known." Ed. 1788.

"Did more to me than magic seem." Ib.