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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LIVINGSTONE, by FRANCIS BROOKS
First Line: On dusky shoulders
Last Line: Death!
Subject(s): Africa; Courage; Immortality; Slavery; Valor; Bravery; Serfs
First Line: On dusky shoulders
Last Line: Death!
Subject(s): Africa; Courage; Immortality; Slavery; Valor; Bravery; Serfs
ON dusky shoulders
Ported through hot Afric fens,
Where the slaver's victim moulders
By the ugly Soko glens,
Behold the man —
Within his stretcher lying,
Body torn,
Thin and worn,
But hopefully defying
Death!
With feeble fingers
Grasping still his honest pen,
With a trust that never lingers
Writes he 'midst the murky fen,
Of what he sees
And thinks and feels there lying,
Body torn,
Thin and worn,
But hopefully defying
Death!
Though the miles before him
Are a thousand dangerous,
Though the sun, a furnace o'er him,
Burns his flesh all feverous,
He presses on
Within his stretcher lying,
Body torn,
Thin and worn,
But hopefully defying
Death!
No white man near him
As he breathes his last brave word,
No loved voice to kindly cheer him,
By immortal courage stirred,
Unflinchingly
He meets his fate there lying,
Body torn,
Thin and worn,
But hopefully defying
Death!
The world's a debtor
For his life of fortitude,
For a million lives made better
By his struggle with the brood
Of Afric's ills,
Within his stretcher lying,
Body torn,
Thin and worn,
But hopefully defying
Death!
And beyond the present,
When a people great as ours
Fill that land with cities pleasant,
Patriot bards will scatter flowers
On Livingstone,
Within his stretcher lying,
Body torn,
Thin and worn,
But hopefully defying
Death!
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