And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
5 Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
For such man's love!?more like an out-of-tune
Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
io Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
1. The cuckoo has a repeating call.
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TH E RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM' S POIN T / 108 5 'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced? And great souls, at one stroke, may do and dote. 5IO43 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints?I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!?and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. 1845-4 7 1850 5The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point1 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. io15II O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you! I see you come 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! ill And thus I thought that I would come And kneel here where ye knelt before, And feel your souls around me hum In undertone to the ocean's roar; 1. Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims landed in November 1620.
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108 6 / ELIZABET H BARRET T BROWNIN G 20And lift my black face, my black hand, Here, in your names, to curse this land Ye blessed in freedom's, evermore. rv 25I 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 3035And yet He has made dark things To be glad and merry as light: 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,0And the sweetest stars are made to pass O'er the face of the darkest night. marsh 40But we who are dark, we are dark! Ah God, we have no stars! About our souls in care and cark0Our blackness shuts like prison-bars: The poor souls crouch so far behind That never a comfort can they find By reaching through the prison-bars. anxiety VII 45Indeed we live beneath the sky, That great smooth Hand of God stretched out On all His children fatherly, To save them from the dread and doubt Which would be if, from this low place, All opened straight up to His face Into the grand eternity. VIII 5055 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 whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen? Look into my eyes and be bold? bobcat
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THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT / 1087
IX
I am black, I am black! But, once, I laughed in girlish glee, For one of my colour stood in the track
60 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 65 As free as if unsold, unbought: Oh, strong enough, since we were two,
To conquer the world, we thought. The drivers drove us day by day; We did not mind, we went one way,
70 And no better a freedom sought.
XI
In the sunny ground between the canes,0 sugar canes He said 'I love you' as he passed; When the shingle- roof rang sharp with the rains, I heard how he vowed it fast: 75 While others shook he smiled in the hut, As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut Through the roar of the hurricanes.
XII
I sang his name instead of a song, Over and over I sang his name, so Upward and downward I drew it along
My various notes,?the same, the same! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess, from aught they could hear,
It was only a name?a name.
XIII
85 I look on the sky and the sea. We were two to love, and two to pray: Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee, Though nothing didst Thou say! Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun: 90 And now I cry who am but one, Thou wilt not speak to-day.
XIV
