The Slave's Dream
Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his Native Land.
Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.
He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand!--
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids
And fell into the sand.
And then at furious speed he rode
Along the Niger's bank;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion's flank.
Before him, like a blood-red flag,
The bright flamingoes flew;
From morn till night he followed their flight,
O'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
And the ocean rose to view.
At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!
This poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1842. Longfellow
was an abolitionistand wrote this poem for the purpose of conveying the
horror of slavery. Slavery was a major catalyst for the Civil War as the
Northern and Southern states bickered over the institutionand the right
of individual states to secede from the Union.
Originally I expected this poem to talk about slaves as a whole and their
dream for freedom. Longfellow, however, wrote his poem about one individual
and I think the result was something much more relatable and moving. It's a
lot easier to relate to one person compared to a whole group, and I think
that is why Longfellow wrote this the way he did.
It talks about a man, a slave, lying beside the grain sleeping. He's dreaming
of his homeland that he no doubt was stolen away from. He is a respected man,
someone who owns himself, "once more a king." I think the most moving lines in
the whole poem are in the third stanza.
"He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand!--
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids
And fell into the sand."
He not only misses his freedom and his country. He misses his wife,
his "dark-eyed queen." He misses his children and their hugs, kisses,
and holding their hands. There he is free, there he is a man, there
he is a husband and a father. Here is enslaved, here he is someone's
property, here he is treated like he is nothing. He is then riding along
the Niger, holding the chains this time instead of being bound by them.
He follows the flight of the flamingos, hears the roar of the lions at
night and the screams of the hyenas. He describes the forests shouting of
liberty, the desert has a voice that is wild and free, and they are their
own masters. Then the dream ends. He is back in reality and his master has
caught him sleeping. But now he doesn't feel the sting of the whip or the
heat of the sun. He is finally free and Longfellow finishes conveying his
powerful message -- the only freedom for this man was through death.
There were many abolitionist writers that wrote to get their message out to
the public but this is one of my favorite abolitionist works along with
Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, because it shows the
effect of enslavement on a single individual which makes it so much
more powerful.
