Would that the sea had swallowed me When I was innocent! And we took in our cargo there, Three hundred negroe slaves, And we sail’d homeward merrily Over the ocean waves. But some were sulky of the slaves And would not touch their meat, So therefore we were forced by threats And blows to make them eat. One woman sulkier than the rest Would still refuse her food,— O Jesus God! I hear her cries— I see her in her blood! The Captain made me tie her up And flog while he stood by, And then he curs’d me if I staid My hand to hear her cry. She groan’d, she shriek’d—I could not spare For the Captain he stood by— Dear God! that I might rest one night From that poor woman’s cry! She twisted from the blows—her blood Her mangled flesh I see— And still the Captain would not spare— Oh he was worse than me! She could not be more glad than I When she was taken down, A blessed minute—’twas the last That I have ever known! I did not close my eyes all night, Thinking what I had done; I heard her groans and they grew faint About the rising sun. She groan’d and groan’d, but her groans grew Fainter at morning tide, Fainter and fainter still they came Till at the noon she died. They flung her overboard;—poor wretch She rested from her pain,— But when—O Christ! O blessed God! Shall I have rest again! I saw the sea close over her, Yet she was still in sight; I see her twisting every where; I see her day and night. Go where I will, do what I can The wicked one I see— Dear Christ have mercy on my soul, O God deliver me! To morrow I set sail again Not to the Negroe shore— Wretch that I am I will at least Commit that sin no more. O give me comfort if you can— Oh tell me where to fly— And bid me hope, if there be hope, For one so lost as I. Poor wretch, the stranger he replied, Put thou thy trust in heaven, And call on him for whose dear sake All sins shall be forgiven. This night at least is thine, go thou And seek the house of prayer, There shalt thou hear the word of God And he will help thee there! 

 

Jaspar

 The stories of the two following ballads are wholly imaginary. I may say of each as John Bunyan did of his Pilgrim’s Progress, 

It came from mine own heart, so to my head, And thence into my fingers trickled; Then to my pen, from whence immediately On paper I did dribble it daintily. 

 Jaspar 

 Jaspar was poor, and want and vice Had made his heart like stone, And Jaspar look’d with envious eyes On riches not his own. On plunder bent abroad he went Towards the close of day, And loitered on the 

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