I need the "layered meaning" of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Slave's Dream."

In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Slave's Dream,"
the layered meaning of the poem can be found in the literal interpretation that we are
reading of the dream of a slave who was once a king in his homeland,
or it can be seen as the capture of any man (against his will) in
his native Africa.

The poem begins by describing a slave,
lying in the field where he has been gathering rice. This is not the first time the man
has had this dream of home, as we note the use of the word
"again."

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Again, in the mist and shadow of
sleep

He saw his Native
Land.

As the landscape is
described, what comes quickly into focus is the man's wife and family. One might assume
that this slave is a king (as the speaker notes) in Africa,
or that any man
with wife, children, home, and freedom, is a king.

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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!

As the man rides along
the banks of the Niger River, the image of "chains" with "a martial clank" may be
literally as they are described, or they might refer to his captivity by slavers on the
beach. Then before the "king," there is "a blood-red flag" of flying flamingoes, but
perhaps there literally is blood as other would-be captives are
whipped or killed in the attempted abduction. As the "ocean rose to view," perhaps the
man has his first glimpse of a slave ship on the
water.

As a
captive...

At night he heard the lion
roar,

And the hyena
scream…

These animals may
represent nature's horror to see something so unnatural taking place...as it might
seeing any creature—meant to be free—taken into captivity. The
"glorious roll of drums" could be sounds from the jungle, but may also refer to drums
that might have been used to "coax" the captives to march in-time toward the ship that
would carry them to death or to lifelong servitude. Perhaps the forests seem to be
speaking; on the other hand, maybe the sounds represent the variety of languages of the
captives, the different dialects, as these people beg for
freedom:

The
forests, with their myriad tongues,

Shouted of
liberty...

The speaker notes
that this man, once a king of his world in some manner, has been carried in death to a
"Land of Sleep." He does not feel the slaver's whip; he does not notice the burning sun
overhead. His body is nothing more than "A worn-out href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fetter">fetter, that the soul
/ Had broken and thrown away," for the slave no longer has need of it and has ultimately
triumphed over his enslavement.