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 feel your souls around me hum 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, And yet He ha; made dark things 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 Which would be, if, from this tow place. 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 Oh, strong enough, since we were two, The drivers drove us day by day; We did not mind, we went one way 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. I sang his name instead of a song; Upward and downward I drew it along My various notes; the same, the same! I sang it low, that the slave girls near xm. I look on the sky and the sea— Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee, Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun! And now I cry who am but one. 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. 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, XXt. Why, in that single glance , had I saw a look that made me mad . . On my soul like his lash . . or worse !— And so, to save it from my curse, XXtt. And he moaned and trembled from foot to head. He snivered from head to foot; Too suddenly still and mute. 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. 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, 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, . . I sate down smiling there and sung XXvitt. And thus we two were reconciled, For, as I sang it soft and wild Rose from the crave whereon I sate! It was the dead child singing that, 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. Ah !—in their 'stead, their hunter sons! 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— 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 (Stand off!) we help not in our loss! 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. While the blue Tuscan sky endomes tu. A little child !—how long she lived. Born in one July, she survived iv. Bright-featured, as the July sun And splendours, with her birth begun, v. So, Lilv, from those July hours, She looked such kinship to the flowers. vi. A Tuscan Lily, only white . . As Dante, in abhorrence The lilies of his Florence. |