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

All night long from the whips of one

He must have cast His work away

Indeed, we live beneath the sky, . . .

And sucked the soul of that child of mine,

XXVII.

Theres a dark stream ripples out of sight;

And silence through the trees did run:

And it lay on my heart like a stone . . . as chill.

Ah, ah! they are on me--they hunt in a ring--

XIX.

And yet He has made dark things

The free sun rideth gloriously;

Through the earliest streaks of the morn.

The seven wounds in Christs body fair;

I am floated along, as if I should die

Beside me at church but yesterday;

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

And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold,

I might have sung and made him mild--

But I dared not sing to the white-faced child

White men, I leave you all curse-free

Which would be, if, from this low place,

As softly as I might have done

VIII.

I sang his name instead of a song;

I heard how he vowed it fast:

He said "I love you" as he passed:

As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.

Why, in that single glance I had

Mere griefs too good for such as I.

Earth, twixt me and my baby, strewed,

They dragged him . . . where ? . . . I crawled to touch

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

XVI.

(Stand off!) we help not in our loss!

Did you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink

X.

But if He did so, smiling back

But my fruit . . . ha, ha!--there, had been

XVII.

XXI.

And fall and crush you and your seed.

With a look of scorn,--that the dusky features

XXIX.

The masters look, that used to fall

XVIII.

As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut,

O pilgrim九-九-藏-書-souls, I speak to you!

To let me weep pure tears and die.

Oh, strong enough, since we were two

Could the weep-poor-will or the cat of the glen

I twisted it round in my shawl.

That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out

I bend my knee down on this mark . . .

In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree,

He could not see the sun, I swear,

As mine in the mangos!--Yes, but she

They could see God sit on His throne.

I am black, I am black;

I saw a look that made me mad . . .

The song I learnt in my maidenhood.

I bore it on through the forest . . . on:

IX.

And still Gods sunshine and His frost,

And this land is the free America:

We had no claim to love and bliss:

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

Ye are born of the Washington-race:

And God was thanked for liberty.

The forests arms did round us shut,

Are, after all, not gods indeed,

They asked no question as I went,--

Though nothing didst Thou say.

XXIII.

Coldly Thou satst behind the sun!

XII.

I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!

Where the pilgrims ships first anchored lay,

He shivered from head to foot;

Until all ended for the best:

My little body, kerchiefed fast,

XXXIII.

I wish you, who stand there five a-breast,

In the name of the white child, waiting for me

When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,

Wet eyes!--it was too merciful

An amulet that hung too slack,

Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee,

I wore a child upon my breast

All, changed to black earth, . . . nothing white, . . .

I pulled the kerchief very close:

For one of my colour stood in the track

From the stroke of her wounded wing?

The white child and black moth九九藏書er, thus:

As white as the ladies who scorned to pray

And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass,

And yet God made me, they say.

I look at the sky and the sea.

I carried the body to and fro;

All opened straight up to His face

Oer the face of the darkest night.

XXX.

XXVIII.

And from that hour our spirits grew

I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun.

I am black, I am black!--

Here, in your names, to curse this land

And kneel here where I knelt before,

I said not a word, but, day and night,

And thus I thought that I would come

Theres a little dark bird sits and sings;

About our souls in care and cark

To bless them from the fear and doubt,

I.

A little corpse as safely at rest

For, as I sang it, soft and wild

I carried the little body on,

I see you staring in my face--

Up to the mountains, lift your hands,

To look in his face, it was so white.

To join the souls of both of us.

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

Look into my eyes and be bold?

And when I felt it was tired at last,

We were black, we were black!

XXII.

My face is black, but it glares with a scorn

I sang it low, that the slave-girls near

Yet when it was all done aright, . . .

V.

VII.

I only cursed them all around,

For the white child wanted his liberty--

In undertone to the oceans roar;

I covered him up with a kerchief there;

O slaves, and end what I begun!

Did point and mock at what was done.

I look on the sky and the sea.

Of libertys exquisite pain--

Do good with bleeding. We who bleed . . .

XIII.

The same song, more melodious,

XIV.

Who in your names works sin and woe.

And thus we two were reconciled,

The clouds are breaking九九藏書 on my brain;

(I laugh to think ont at this hour! . . .)

O pilgrims, I have gasped and run

By reaching through the prison-bars.

I look on the sky and the sea--

They stood too high for astonishment,--

To conquer the world, we thought!

And round me and round me ye go!

Where exile turned to ancestor,

We did not mind, we went one way,

I know you, staring, shrinking back--

Ye blessed in freedoms evermore.

And feel your souls around me hum

Into the grand eternity.

How wilt Thou speak to-day?--

As free as if unsold, unbought:

I scooped a hole beneath the moon.

Might be trodden again to clay.

XXIV.

I stand on the mark beside the shore

Could a slave look so at another slave?--

XXXI.

Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

Do fear and take us for very men!

I am cold, though it happened a month ago.

One to another, one to another,

We were two to love, and two to pray,--

In my broken hearts disdain!

My own, own child! I could not bear

They make us hot, they make us cold,

He struck them out, as it was meet,

They wrung my cold hands out of his,--

And lift my black face, my black hand,

Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong!

His little feet that never grew--

For in this UNION, you have set

XXXV.

Your fine white angels, who have seen

Of my childs face, . . . I tell you all,

And tender and full was the look he gave:

And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,

It was the dead child singing that,

And, in my unrest, could not rest:

IV.

While others shook, he smiled in the hut

I am not mad: I am black.

And the sweetest stars are made to pass

Against my heart to brerｅａｄ•99ｃｓw.ｃｏmak it through.

II.

But, once, I laughed in girlish glee;

From the land of the spirits pale as dew. . .

In the sunny ground between the canes,

Ha, ha, for the trick of the angels white!

When one is black and one is fair.

Under the feet of His white creatures,

XXV.

That never a comfort can they find

You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!

To be glad and merry as light.

Our blackness shuts like prison bars:

Each, for his own wifes joy and gift,

And so, to save it from my curse,

And this mark on my wrist . . . (I prove what I say)

Till, after a time, he lay instead

Thus we went moaning, child and mother,

To strangle the sob of my agony.

Was far too white . . . too white for me;

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

XI.

More, then, alive, than now he does

Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.

I see you come out proud and slow

VI.

Through the forest-tops the angels far,

The only song I knew.

Might never guess from aught they could hear,

From the white mans house, and the black mans hut,

While HE sees gaping everywhere

My very own child!--From these sands

XXXIV.

But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away

As if we were not black and lost:

I look on the sea and the sky!

Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

I covered his face in close and tight:

And plucked my fruit to make them wine,

Of the first white pilgrims bended knee,

May keep live babies on her knee,

Through the roar of the hurricanes.

From between the roots of the mango . . . where

You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think:

Keep off! I brave you all at once--

Which they dare not meet by d九-九-藏-書ay.

. . . I know where. Close! a child and mother

The poor souls crouch so far behind,

Whips, curses; these must answer those!

But we who are dark, we are dark!

Rose from the grave whereon I sate!

He moaned and beat with his head and feet,

And no better a liberty sought.

And the babe who lay on my bosom so,

Too suddenly still and mute.

Over and over I sang his name--

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

III.

And sing the song she liketh best.

XXVI.

So the white men brought the shame ere long

XV.

It was only a name.

His bloods mark in the dust! . . . not much,

Nearest the secret of Gods power, . . .

And he moaned and trembled from foot to head,

On all His children fatherly,

Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.

Where the drivers drove, and looked at me--

XXXVI.

My various notes; the same, the same!

Each loathing each: and all forget

Nor able to make Christs again

They freed the white childs spirit so.

Upward and downward I drew it along

Some comfort, and my heart grew young:

Do wrong to look at one another,

I am black, you see,--

The drivers drove us day by day;

We are too heavy for our cross,

Ah!--in their stead, their hunter sons!

And now I cry who am but one,

XXXll.

Two kinds of men in adverse rows,

I sate down smiling there and sung

I dared to lift up just a fold . . .

What marvel, if each turned to lack?

Our wounds are different. Your white men

I felt, beside, a stiffening cold, . . .

XX.

They would not leave me for my dull

I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,

A dark child in the dark,--ensued

With a white sharp finger from every star,

I am black, I am black!--

Ah, God, we have no stars!