THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT. I I. STAND on the mark beside the shore Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee, Where exile turned to ancestor, And God was thanked for liberty. I have run through the night, my skin is as dark, I bend my knee down on this mark . . I look on the sky and the sea. II. O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you! I see you come out proud and slow O pilgrims, I have gasped and run III. And thus I thought that I would come And lift Here, in my black face, my black hand, your names, to curse this land Ye blessed in freedom's evermore. IV. I am black, I am black; And yet God made me, they say. But if He did so, smiling back He must have cast his work 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 has 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! Our blackness shuts like prison-bars: By reaching through the prison-bars. VII. Indeed we live beneath the sky, That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out On all His children fatherly, To bless them from the fear and doubt, VIII. And still God's sunshine and His frost, They make us hot, they make us cold, As 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 ? IX. I am black, I am black !— But, once, I laughed in girlish glee; For one of my colour 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, XI. In the sunny ground between the canes, While others shook, he smiled in the hut I sang XII. his name instead of a song; Over and over I sang his name Upward and downward I drew it along I My various notes; the same, the same! sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess from aught they could hear, It was only a name. XIII. I look on the sky and the sea We were two to love, and two to pray,- XIV. We were black, we were black! We had no claim to love and bliss: What marvel, if each turned to lack? 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! 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, Until all ended for the best: XVII. For hark! I will tell you low.. low.. I am black, you see,― |