THE SLAVE'S DREAM
Henry Longfellow Wadsworth
The poem the slave's dream is written by the American poet Henry Longfellow Wadsworth. He was born on 27 February 1827 in Portland, marine, and died on 24 march, 1882 in Cambridge Massachusetts. He has two spouses and six children. He was a commanding creature in the nineteenth century. His works include Paul river's ride, the song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. he was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's divine. majority of collections were voices of the night, ballads, and other poems. he also wrote lyric poems and was criticized for imitating European styles.
About poem:
The poem the slave's dream is a long narrative poem it describes the slave's dying moment as lost in a dream. The poem describes the lost dreams and ambitions of a slave. our country has faced slavery to Britishers. poetry describes the feeling of hurt, pain, and memories of the family experienced by a slave. the poem describes the physical gesture of the slave, his dreams, his memory of family, and the way he looks towards his life as a free man.
Let's see the poem in detail...
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.
The physical image of a slave is portrayed in the first stanza of the poem. he is tired of the work assigned to him and sleeping in fields. The phase ungathered rice and sickle in his hand indicates that his work is yet incomplete. His bare breast represents the bareness of his life as a slave and matted hair buried in sand indicates the death slowly creeping over his body. as he sleeps his dreams take him to 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
The slave is back to his homeland through his dreams. Entering his homeland he transformed into a king he rides his horse and surveys the palm trees on the plain where the lordly niger river is flowing. He hears the tinking caravans of travelers descend from the mountains. This vast expanse of land in his dream gives the smell and happiness of independence, there is the movement for freedom, and slaves avails for opportunities. This stanza shows the slave's cravings for freedom.
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.
The third stanza shows the slave's desire to meet his family. The slave is a respected family head, he saw his lovely wife and their adoring children.
His family grasps his hand and they affectionately kiss his face. Though he is
sleeping, the slave cries and his tears fall into the sand. the image of a beautiful loving family is created it shows how a slave is devoted to his family.
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 fool his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion’s flank.
In the fourth stanza, we see how he perceives his life as a free man. He sees himself riding a horse at a furious speed with Golden chains as bridle reins warrior like he Smits his swords on his stallion's flank.
Before him, like a blood-red flag,
The bright flamingos flew;
From morn till night the followed third flight,
o'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of coffee huts,
And he ocean rose to view.
Referring to the text, the fifth stanza is a continuation of the fourth stanza he sees himself following the flight of flamingos over the plains where tamarind was grown. He recalls the caffeine huts and the ocean through his subconscious.
At night he heard that lion roar
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Besides some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.
In the sixth stanza he dreams sequentially of the lion's roar and hyena's scream and pictures himself crushing the reeds, listening to the river horse making a sound like a glorious roll of drums it passes his dream is triumphant as it successfully gives him a sense of freedom and happiness.
The forests, with their myraid 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 smile
At their tempestuous glee.
The forests and deserts in the seventh stanza are personified with the quality of shouting and crying respectively for liberty and freedom. Forests are given the quality of having a human tongue which suggests a ' personification' figure of speech in the stanza. And the slave smiles in his dreams on his 'tempestuous glee' - characterized by violent emotions or actions.
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
The last stanza of the poem describes how the slave was lost in his dream that he could not feel the driver's whip nor he felt the burning sun lying on the ground. A 'worn-out fetter' - the soul was thrown out of the body, and the lifeless still body was lying on the land of sleep. And with the width of meeting his family, he lost his life.
The poem is describing the situation of the people faced by Negros when the Britishers were ruling over them. The poem is about the period before the civil war when Negros were under slavery. The poem is an emotional poem in-sighting us the slave. This world is created by God with equal rights but humans started ruling over other humans and started dominating. Humanity is being destroyed.
