Hold Your Mad Hands

Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood? For ever must your Niger's tainted flood, Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain? Hold your mad hands! and learn at length to know, And turn your vengeance on the common foe, Yon treacherous vessel and her godless crew! Let never traders with false pretext fair Set on your shores again their wicked feet: With interdict and indignation meet Repel them, and with fire and sword pursue! Avarice, the white cadaverous fiend, is there, Who spreads his toils accursed wide and far, And for his purveyor calls the demon War.