Volume II Part 25 (2/2)

And thus we two were reconciled, The white child and black mother, thus; For as I sang it soft and wild, The same song, more melodious, Rose from the grave whereon I sate It was the dead child singing that, To join the souls of both of us.

XXIX.

I look on the sea and the sky.

Where the pilgrims' s.h.i.+ps first anch.o.r.ed lay The free sun rideth gloriously, But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away Through the earliest streaks of the morn: My face is black, but it glares with a scorn Which they dare not meet by day.

x.x.x.

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

Ha, ha! they are on me--they hunt in a ring!

Keep off! I brave you all at once, I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!

You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think: Did you ever stand still in your triumph, and shrink From the stroke of her wounded wing?

x.x.xI.

(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!--) I wish you who stand there five abreast.

Each, for his own wife's joy and gift, A little corpse as safely at rest As mine in the mangoes! Yes, but _she_ May keep live babies on her knee, And sing the song she likes the best.

x.x.xII.

I am not mad: I am black.

I see you staring in my face-- I know you staring, shrinking back, Ye are born of the Was.h.i.+ngton-race, And this land is the free America, And this mark on my wrist--(I prove what I say) Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

x.x.xIII.

You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!

I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun; I only cursed them all around As softly as I might have done My very own child: from these sands Up to the mountains, lift your hands, O slaves, and end what I begun!

x.x.xIV.

Whips, curses; these must answer those!

For in this UNION you have set Two kinds of men in adverse rows, Each loathing each; and all forget The seven wounds in Christ's body fair, While HE sees gaping everywhere Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

x.x.xV.

Our wounds are different. Your white men Are, after all, not G.o.ds indeed, Nor able to make Christs again Do good with bleeding. _We_ who bleed (Stand off!) we help not in our loss!

_We_ are too heavy for our cross, And fall and crush you and your seed.

x.x.xVI.

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

The clouds are breaking on my brain I am floated along, as if I should die Of liberty's exquisite pain.

In the name of the white child waiting for me In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree, White men, I leave you all curse-free In my broken heart's disdain!

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