"MIDDLE PASSAGE"
by Robert Hayden
Aye, lad, and I have seen those factories,
Gambia, Rio Pongo, Calabar ; have
watched the artful mongos baiting traps of
war wherein the victor and the vanquished
Were caught as prizes for our barracoons.
Have seen the nigger kings whose vanity
and greed turned wild black hides of Fellatah,
Mandingo, Ibo, Kru to gold for us.
And there was one--King Anthracite we named
him--fetish face beneath French parasols of
brass and orange velvet, impudent mouth
whose cups were carven skulls of enemies:
He 'd honor us with drum and feast and conjo
and palm-oil-glistening wenches deft in love, and for tin
crowns that shone with paste, red calico and
German-silver trinkets
Would have the drums talk war and send
his warriors to burn the sleeping villages
and kill the sick and old and lead the young in coffles to our
factories.
Twenty years a trader, twenty years,
for there was wealth aplenty to be harvested
from those black fields, and I 'd be trading still
but for the fevers melting down my bones.
