Ye blessed in freedoms evermore.

But I dared not sing to the white-faced child

Might be trodden again to clay.

One to another, one to another,

They asked no question as I went,--

They stood too high for astonishment,--

XI.

Where exile turned to ancestor,

When one is black and one is fair.

May keep live babies on her knee,

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

And so, to save it from my curse,

Too suddenly still and mute.

In the name of the white child, waiting for me

Which would be, if, from this low place,

VIII.

You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!

XXI.

Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

And tender and full was the look he gave:

Do fear and take us for very men!

The forests arms did round us shut,

We were black, we were black!

We had no claim to love and bliss:

I bend my knee down on this mark . . .

And from that hour our spirits grew

I stand on the mark beside the shore

As free as if unsold, unbought:

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

I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun.

XXVIII.

XVI.

Could a slave look so at another slave?--

I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!

XIX.

Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.

Until all ended for the best:

And this land is the free America:

XX.

With a white sharp finger from every star,

The song I learnt in my maidenhood.

While others shook, he smiled in the hut

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

And round me and round me ye go!

And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass,

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

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

In my broken hearts disdain!

To join the souls of both of us.

I am floated al九_九_藏_书_网ong, as if I should die

Keep off! I brave you all at once--

Theres a little dark bird sits and sings;

To let me weep pure tears and die.

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

The masters look, that used to fall

Two kinds of men in adverse rows,

And now I cry who am but one,

XXX.

It was the dead child singing that,

Through the roar of the hurricanes.

Under the feet of His white creatures,

What marvel, if each turned to lack?

O pilgrims, I have gasped and run

A dark child in the dark,--ensued

I am cold, though it happened a month ago.

About our souls in care and cark

We are too heavy for our cross,

XXVII.

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

And kneel here where I knelt before,

Of libertys exquisite pain--

And the sweetest stars are made to pass

XXXI.

XXIV.

Your fine white angels, who have seen

To be glad and merry as light.

And the babe who lay on my bosom so,

I pulled the kerchief very close:

But if He did so, smiling back

As softly as I might have done

For in this UNION, you have set

They make us hot, they make us cold,

XVIII.

Nor able to make Christs again

I carried the little body on,

The only song I knew.

I am black, I am black!--

But we who are dark, we are dark!

Whips, curses; these must answer those!

XII.

Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong!

And, in my unrest, could not rest:

And no better a liberty sought.

As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.

My little body, kerchiefed fast,

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

I know you, staring, shrinking back--

Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

I carried the body to and fro;

As if we were not black and lｗwｗ.９９lib•neｔost:

I see you staring in my face--

O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!

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

My various notes; the same, the same!

From between the roots of the mango . . . where

My own, own child! I could not bear

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

XXIII.

Where the drivers drove, and looked at me--

And plucked my fruit to make them wine,

By reaching through the prison-bars.

Why, in that single glance I had

To conquer the world, we thought!

Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.

As white as the ladies who scorned to pray

Did you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink

The clouds are breaking on my brain;

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

Each loathing each: and all forget

All night long from the whips of one

The white child and black mother, thus:

Do good with bleeding. We who bleed . . .

He could not see the sun, I swear,

Of the first white pilgrims bended knee,

I look on the sky and the sea--

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

So the white men brought the shame ere long

To bless them from the fear and doubt,

From the stroke of her wounded wing?

III.

I.

We did not mind, we went one way,

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

XIV.

But, once, I laughed in girlish glee;

I saw a look that made me mad . . .

I am black, I am black!--

Oh, strong enough, since we were two

The poor souls crouch so far behind,

And sing the song she liketh best.

They wrung my cold hands out of his,--

Oer the face of the darkest night.

And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold,

An amulet that h九*九*藏*书*网ung too slack,

Which they dare not meet by day.

Ye are born of the Washington-race:

A little corpse as safely at rest

XVII.

Up to the mountains, lift your hands,

White men, I leave you all curse-free

Against my heart to break it through.

I sang it low, that the slave-girls near

I only cursed them all around,

And yet God made me, they say.

And thus I thought that I would come

Into the grand eternity.

On all His children fatherly,

I wore a child upon my breast

IX.

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

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

Theres a dark stream ripples out of sight;

Yet when it was all done aright, . . .

XXXVI.

VII.

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

My face is black, but it glares with a scorn

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

I am black, you see,--

The seven wounds in Christs body fair;

He struck them out, as it was meet,

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

In undertone to the oceans roar;

And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,

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

That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out

They could see God sit on His throne.

XIII.

Nearest the secret of Gods power, . . .

My very own child!--From these sands

Do wrong to look at one another,

But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away

Upward and downward I drew it along

Our wounds are different. Your white men

More, then, alive, than now he does

Through the earliest streaks of the morn.

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

The same song, more melodious,

The free sun rideth gloriously;

And silence through the trees did run:

XXV.

Mere griefs too good for

九九藏书网

such as I.

Where the pilgrims ships first anchored lay,

He must have cast His work away

XXXIV.

And lift my black face, my black hand,

Some comfort, and my heart grew young:

XV.

Look into my eyes and be bold?

He shivered from head to foot;

They freed the white childs spirit so.

II.

In the sunny ground between the canes,

While HE sees gaping everywhere

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

XXVI.

When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,

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

I covered him up with a kerchief there;

Who in your names works sin and woe.

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

For one of my colour stood in the track

Through the forest-tops the angels far,

And yet He has made dark things

XXXll.

They would not leave me for my dull

Did point and mock at what was done.

XXII.

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

Rose from the grave whereon I sate!

All opened straight up to His face

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

Might never guess from aught they could hear,

And sucked the soul of that child of mine,

For, as I sang it, soft and wild

Beside me at church but yesterday;

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

O slaves, and end what I begun!

His little feet that never grew--

Are, after all, not gods indeed,

How wilt Thou speak to-day?--

And fall and crush you and your seed.

XXXV.

Though nothing didst Thou say.

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

And thus we two were reconciled,

I look at the sky and the sea.

The drivers drove us day by day;

It was only a name.

He said "I love you" as he passed:

I am black, I am black;

I sang his name 九_九_藏_书_网instead of a song;

I dared to lift up just a fold . . .

Coldly Thou satst behind the sun!

Indeed, we live beneath the sky, . . .

And when I felt it was tired at last,

That never a comfort can they find

VI.

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

For the white child wanted his liberty--

Over and over I sang his name--

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

I scooped a hole beneath the moon.

Earth, twixt me and my baby, strewed,

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

I twisted it round in my shawl.

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

I look on the sea and the sky!

I covered his face in close and tight:

And feel your souls around me hum

And God was thanked for liberty.

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

X.

V.

IV.

To look in his face, it was so white.

XXXIII.

And still Gods sunshine and His frost,

I look on the sky and the sea.

And he moaned and trembled from foot to head,

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

Our blackness shuts like prison bars:

Each, for his own wifes joy and gift,

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

I see you come out proud and slow

I heard how he vowed it fast:

Till, after a time, he lay instead

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

Here, in your names, to curse this land

I sate down smiling there and sung

I might have sung and made him mild--

To strangle the sob of my agony.

Ah, God, we have no stars!

I am not mad: I am black.

He moaned and beat with his head and feet,

XXIX.

Wet eyes!--it was too merciful

Thus we went moaning, child and mother,

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