iL

O pilgrim souls, I speak to you!

l see you come out proud and slow From the land of the spirits pale as dew . .

And round me and round me you go!

0 pilgrims, I have gasped and run All night long from the whips of one

Who in your names works sin and woe.

ui.

And thus I thought that I would come
And kneel here where ye knelt before,

And feel your souls around me hum
In undertone to the ocean's roar;

And lift my black face, my black hand,

Here, in your names, to curse this land Ye blessed in freedom's evermore.

iv.

I am black, I am black;

And yet Cod made me, they say. But if he did so, smiling back

He must have cast his werk away Under the feet of his white creatures, With a look of scorn,—that the dusky features

Might be trodden again to clay,
v.

And yet He ha; made dark things
To be glad and merry as light.

There's a little dark bird, sits and sings; There's a dark stream ripples out of sight;

And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass,

And the sweetest stars are made to pass O'er the face of the darkest night.

vi.

But we who are dark, we are dark!

Ah God, we have no stars! About our souls in care and cark

Our blackness shuts like prison-bars: The poor souls crouch so far behind, That never a comfort can they find

By reaching through the prison-bars.

vtt.

Indeed we live beneath the sky, That great smooth Hand of Ood stretched out

On all His children fatherly,

To save them from the dread and
doubt

Which would be, if, from this tow place.
All opened straight up to His face
Into the grand eternity.

vitt.

And still God's sunshine and His frost. They make us hot, they make us cold,

And if we were not black and lost: And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold.

Do fear and take us for very men! Could the weep-poor-will or the cat of the glen

Look into my eyes and be bold 1

iX.

I am black, I am black!—

But, once I laughed in girlish glee; For one of my color stood in the track

Where the drivers drove, and looked at me—

And tender and full was the look he gave:

Could a slave look so at another slave ?— I look at the sky and the sea.

x.

And from that hour our spirits grew
As free as if unsold, unbought:

Oh, strong enough, since we were two,
To conquer the world we thought!

The drivers drove us day by day;

We did not mind, we went one way
And no better a freedom sought.

Xi.

In the sunny ground between the canes.

He said * I love you' as he passed: When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains, I heard how he vowed it fast: While others shook he smiled in the hut As he carved me a bowl of the cocoanut

Through the roar of the hurricanes.
Xtt.

I sang his name instead of a song;
Over and over I sang his.name—

Upward and downward I drew it along My various notes; the same, the same!

I sang it low, that the slave girls near
Might never guess from aught they
could hear,
It was only a name—a name.

xm.

I look on the sky and the sea—
We were two to love, and two to
pray,—

Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee,
Though nothing didst Thou say.

Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun!

And now I cry who am but one.
Thou wilt speak to-day.—

Xiv,

We were black, we were black!

We had no claim to love and bliss: ,Vhat marvel, if each went to wrack?

They wrung my cold hands out of his,—

They dragged him . . where? . . I

crawled to touch His blood's mark in the dust! . . not

much.

Ye pilgrim-souls, . . though plain as this /

Xv.

Wrong followed by a deeper wrong!

Mere griefs too good for such as I. So the white men brought the shame ere long

To strangle the sob of my agony. They would not leave me for my dull Wet eyes !—it was too merciful

To let me weep pure tears and die.

Xvi.

I am black, I am black!

I wore a child upon my breast. . An amulet that hung too slack.

And, in my unrest, could not rest: Thus we went moaning, child and mother

One to another, one to another.
Until all ended for the best:

XvII.

For hark! I will tell you low . . low . .

I am black, you see,— And the habe who lay on my bosom so.

Was far too white . too white for me;

As white as the ladies who scorned to pray

Beside me at church but yesterday: Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.

Xvttt.

My own, own child! I could not bear To look in his face, it was so white.

I covered him up with a kerchief there; I covered his face in close and tight;

And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,

For the white child wanted his liberty— Ha, ha! he wanted the master right.

XtX.

He moaned and beat with his head and feet,

His little feet that never grew— He struck them out, as it was meet.

Against my heart to break it through. I might have sung and made him mild— But T dared not sing to the white-faced child

The only song I knew.

XX.

I pulled the kerchief very close:

He could not see the sun, I swear More, then, alive, than now he does From between the roots of the mango .. . where? I know where. Close! a child and mother

Do wrong to look at one another,
When one is black and one is fair.

XXt.

Why, in that single glance , had
Of my child's face, . . I tell you all,

I saw a look that made me mad . .
The master's look, that used to fall

On my soul like his lash . . or worse !—

And so, to save it from my curse,
I twisted it round in my shawl.

XXtt.

And he moaned and trembled from foot to head.

He snivered from head to foot;
Till, after a time, he lay instead

Too suddenly still and mute.
I felt beside a stiffening cold . .
I dared to lift up just a fold, . .

As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.

XXitt.

But my fruit . . ha, ha !—there had been (I laugh to think on't at this hour! . .)

Your fine white angels, who have seen Nearest the secret of God's power, . .

And plucked my fruit to make them wine.

And sucked the soul of that child of mine,

As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower.

XXiv.

Ha, ha, the trick of the angels white!

They freed the white child's spirit so. I said not a word, but, day and night,

I carried the body to and fro; And it lay on my heart like a stone . . as chill.

—The sun may shine out as much as he will:

I am cold, though it happened a month ago.

XXv.

From the white man's house, and the black man's hut,

I carried the little body on.
The forest's arms did round us shut,

And silence through the trees did run: They asked no question as I went,— They stood too high for astonishment,—

They could see God sit on his throne.

XXvi.

My little body, kerchiefed fast,

I bore it on through the forest. . on:

And when I felt it was tired at last,
I scooped a hole beneath the moon.

Through the forest-tops the angels far.

With a white shape finger from every star,

Did point and mock at what was done.

XXvtt.

Yet when it was all done aright, . .
Earth, 'twixt me and my baby,
strewed, . .
All changed to black earth, . . nothing
white, . .
A dark child in the dark,—ensued
Some comfort, and my heart grew
young:

I sate down smiling there and sung
The song I learnt in my maidenhood.

XXvitt.

And thus we two were reconciled,
The white child and black mother,
thus:

For, as I sang it soft and wild
The same song, more melodious,

Rose from the crave whereon I sate!

It was the dead child singing that,
To join the souls of both of us.

XXiX.

I look on the sea and the sky!

Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay. The free sun rideth gloriously;

But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away Through the earliest streaks of the morn. My face is black, but it glares with a scorn

Which they dare not meet by day.
XXX.

Ah !—in their 'stead, their hunter sons!
Ah, ah! they are on me—they hunt
in a ring—
Keep off! I brave yon all at once—
I throw off your eyes like snakes that
sting!

You have killed the black eagle at nest, I th ink:

Did you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink From the stroke of her wounded wing?

XXXi.

(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!—)

I wish you who stand there five abreast,

Each, for his own wife's joy and gift,

A little corpse as safely at rest As mine in the mangoes!—Yes, but she May keep live babies on her knee, And sing the song she liketh best.

XXXtt.

I am not mad: I am black.

I see you staring in my face—
I know you staring, shrinking back—

Ye are born of the Washington-race: And this land is the free America: And this mark on my wrist . , (I prove what I say) Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

xxx.n1.

You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!

I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun. I only cursed them all around,

As softly as I might nave done My very own child !—From thesesands Up to the mountains, lift your hands,

O slaves, and end what I begun!

XXXiv.

Whips, curses : those must answer those!

For in this Union, you have set Two kinds of men in adverse rows,

Each loathing each: and all forget The seven wounds in Christ's body fair; While He sees gaping everywhere

Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

XXXv.

Our wounds are different. Your white men

Are, after all, not gods indeed. Nor able to make Christs again

Do good with bleeding. We who
bleed

(Stand off!) we help not in our loss!
We are too heavy for our cross.
And fall and crush you and your seed.

XXXvi.

I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky:

The clouds are breaking on my brain; I am floated along as if I should die

Of liberty's exquisite pain— In the name of the white child waiting for me

In the death-dark where we may kiss

and agree, White men, I leave you all curse-free In my broken heart's disdain!

A CHILD'S GRAVE AT FLORENCE.

A. A. R. C. Bobn July, i848. Dim, Novembrr, i849.

Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, . .

What country should we give her? Instead of any on the earth.

The civic Heavens receive her.

n.

Ana here, among the English tombs.
In Tuscan ground we lay her,

While the blue Tuscan sky endomes
Our English words of prayer.

tu.

A little child !—how long she lived.
By months, not years, is reckoned:

Born in one July, she survived
Alone to see a second.

iv.

Bright-featured, as the July sun
Her little face still played in.

And splendours, with her birth begun,
Had had no time for fading.

v.

So, Lilv, from those July hours,
No wonder we should call her:

She looked such kinship to the flowers.
Was but a little taller.

vi.

A Tuscan Lily, only white . .

As Dante, in abhorrence
Of red corruption, wished aright

The lilies of his Florence.