The Witnesses
The Witnesses - fact Summary
Notable Publication Detail
Longfellow personifies the dead—skeletons in shipwrecked slave-ships and buried bodies—as accusers of slavery and human cruelty. Ocean and earth yield gleaming bones that cry "We are the Witnesses," while markets, chains, and the consequences of violence are listed as evidence of collective guilt. The poem frames the enslaved dead as moral testimony against oppression and vice, reflecting the poet’s anti-slavery perspective.
Read Complete AnalysesIn Ocean's wide domains, Half buried in the sands, Lie skeletons in chains, With shackled feet and hands. Beyond the fall of dews, Deeper than plummet lies, Float ships, with all their crews, No more to sink nor rise. There the black Slave-ship swims, Freighted with human forms, Whose fettered, fleshless limbs Are not the sport of storms. These are the bones of Slaves; They gleam from the abyss; They cry, from yawning waves, "We are the Witnesses!" Within Earth's wide domains Are markets for men's lives; Their necks are galled with chains, Their wrists are cramped with gyves. Dead bodies, that the kite In deserts makes its prey; Murders, that with affright Scare school-boys from their play! All evil thoughts and deeds; Anger, and lust, and pride; The foulest, rankest weeds, That choke Life's groaning tide! These are the woes of Slaves; They glare from the abyss; They cry, from unknown graves, "We are the Witnesses!"
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