The Slave Mother
Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seemed as if a burden'd heart
Was breaking in despair.
Saw you those hands so sadly clasped—5
The bowed and feeble head—
The shuddering of that fragile form—
That look of grief and dread?
Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,10
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.
She is a mother, pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kirtle vainly tries15
His trembling form to hide.
He is not hers, although she bore
For him a mother's pains;
He is not hers, although her blood
Is coursing through his veins!20
He is not hers, for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart
The only wreath of household love
That binds her breaking heart.
His love has been a joyous light25
That o'er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life's desert wild.
His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart,30
Their lives a streamlet blent in one—
Oh, Father! must they part?
They tear him from her circling arms,
Her last and fond embrace:
Oh! never more may her sad eyes35
Graze on his mournful face.
No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks
Disturb the listening air:
She is a mother, and her heart
Is breaking in despair.40
Bury Me in a Free Land
You may make my grave wherever you will,
In a lowly vale or a lofty hill;
You may make it among earth’s humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.
I could not sleep if around my grave5
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.
I could not rest if I heard the tread
Of a coffle-gang to the shambles led,10
And the mother’s shriek of wild despair
Rise like a curse on the trembling air.
I could not rest if I heard the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast15
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.
I’d shudder and start, if I heard the bay
Of the bloodhounds seizing their human prey;
If I heard the captive plead in vain
As they tightened afresh his galling chain.20
If I saw young girls, from their mothers’ arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.
I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might25
Can rob no man of his dearest right;
My rest shall be calm in any grave,
Where none calls his brother a slave.
I ask no monument, proud and high
To arrest the gaze of the passers by;30
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is—bury me not in the land of slaves.—
Learning to Read
Very soon the Yankee teachers
Came down and set up school;
But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,
It was agin' their rule.
Our masters always tried to hide5
Book learning from our eyes;
Knowledge did'nt agree with slavery—
'Twould make us all too wise.
But some of us would try to steal
A little from the book,10
And put the words together,
And learn by hook or crook.
I remember Uncle Caldwell,
Who took pot-liquor fat
And greased the pages of his book,15
And hid it in his hat.
And had his master ever seen
The leaves upon his head,
He'd have thought them greasy papers,
But nothing to be read.20
And there was Mr. Turner's Ben,
Who heard the children spell,
And picked the words right up by heart,
And learned to read 'em well.
Well, the Northern folks kept sending25
The Yankee teachers down;
And they stood right up and helped us,
Though Rebs did sneer and frown.
And, I longed to read my Bible,
For precious words it said;30
But when I begun to learn it,
Folks just shook their heads,
And said there is no use trying,
Oh! Chloe, you're too late;
But as I was rising sixty,35
I had no time to wait.
So I got a pair of glasses,
And straight to work I went,
And never stopped till I could read
The hymns and Testament.40
Then I got a little cabin
A place to call my own—
And I felt as independent
As the queen upon her throne.