Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point, The
I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrims bended knee,
Where exile turo aor,
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 e out proud and slow
From the land of the spirits pale as dew. . .
And round me and round me ye go!
O pilgrims, I have gasped and run
All night long from the whips of one
Who in your names works sin and woe.
III.
And thus I thought that I would e
And kneel here where I k before,
And feel your souls around me hum
In uoo the os roar;
And lift my black face, my black hand,
Here, in your o curse this land
Ye blessed in freedoms evermore.
IV.
I am black, I am black;
A God made me, they say.
But if He did so, smiling back
He must have cast His work away
Uhe feet of His white creatures,
With a look of s,--that the dusky features
Might be trodden again to clay.
V.
A He has made dark things
To be glad and merry as light.
Theres a little dark bird sits and sings;
Theres a dark stream ripples out of sight;
And the dark frogs t in the safe morass,
And the sweetest stars are made to pass
Oer 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 blaess shuts like prison bars:
The poor souls crouch so far behind,
That never a fort they find
By reag through the prison-bars.
VII.
Indeed, we live beh the sky, . . .
That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out
On all His children fatherly,
To bless them from the fear and doubt,
Which would be, if, from this low place,
All operaight up to His face
Into the graernity.
VIII.
And still Gods sunshine and His frost,
They make us hot, they make us cold,
As if we were not blad 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 irack
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
As free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were two
To quer the world, we thought!
The drivers drove us day by day;
We did not mind, we went one way,
And er a liberty sought.
XI.
In the sunny grouween the es,
He said "I love you" as he passed:
When the shingle-r sharp with the rains,
I heard how he vowed it fast:
While others shook, he smiled i
As he carved me a bowl of the cout,
Through the roar of the hurries.
XII.
I sang his name instead of a song;
Over and over I sang his name--
Upward and downward I drew it along
My various he same, the same!
I sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might ne