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William Cullen Bryant - The African Chief
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Chained in the market-place he stood,
  A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude
  That shrunk to hear his name--
All stern of look and strong of limb,
  His dark eye on the ground:--
And silently they gazed on him,
  As on a lion bound.

Vainly, but well, that chief had fought,
  He was a captive now,
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
  Was written on his brow.
The scars his dark broad bosom wore,
  Showed warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before,
  He could not be a slave.

Then to his conqueror he spake--
  "My brother is a king;
Undo this necklace from my neck,
  And take this bracelet ring,
And send me where my brother reigns,
  And I will fill thy hands
With store of ivory from the plains,
  And gold-dust from the sands."

"Not for thy ivory nor thy gold
  Will I unbind thy chain;
That bloody hand shall never hold
  The battle-spear again.
A price thy nation never gave
  Shall yet be paid for thee;
For thou shalt be the Christian`s slave,
  In lands beyond the sea."

Then wept the warrior chief, and bade
  To shred his locks away;
And one by one, each heavy braid
  Before the victor lay.
Thick were the platted locks, and long,
  And closely hidden there
Shone many a wedge of gold among
  The dark and crisped hair.

"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold
  Long kept for sorest need:
Take it--thou askest sums untold,
  And say that I am freed.
Take it--my wife, the long, long day,
  Weeps by the cocoa-tree,
And my young children leave their play,
  And ask in vain for me."

"I take thy gold--but I have made
  Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
  Thy wife will wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
  The captive`s frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
  Was changed to mortal fear.

His heart was broken--crazed his brain:
  At once his eye grew wild;
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
  Whispered, and wept, and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
  And once, at shut of day,
They drew him forth upon the sands,
  The foul hyena`s prey.
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