We were black, we were black, We had no claim to love and bliss,
1088 /
95
IOO
105
no
115
120
125
130
.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
What marvel if each went to wrack?0 ruin
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! Mere grief's too good for such as I: So the white men brought the shame ere long
To strangle the sob of my agony. They would not leave me for my dull Wet eyes!?it was too merciful
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, One to another, one to another,
Until all ended for the best.
XVII
For hark! I will tell you low, low, I am black, you see,? And the babe who lay on my bosom so,
Was far too white, too white for me; As white as the ladies who scorned to pray Beside me at church but yesterday,
Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.
XVIII
My own, own child! I could not bear To look in his face, it was so white; I covered him up with a kerchief there, I covered his face in close and tight: And he moaned and struggled, as well might be, For the white child wanted his liberty? Ha, ha! he wanted the master-right.
XIX
He moaned and beat with his head and feet, His little feet that never grew; He struck them out, as it was meet,
Against my heart to break it through: I might have sung and made him mild, But I dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I knew.
.
THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT / 1089
xx I pulled the kerchief very close:
us He could not see the sun, I swear,
More, then, alive, than now he does
From between the roots of the mango . . . where?
I know where. Close! A child and mother
Do wrong to look at one another
140 When one is black and one is fair.
XXI Why, in that single glance I had
Of my child's face, .. . I tell you all,
I saw a look that made me mad! The master's look, that used to fall 145 On my soul like his lash .. . or worse! And so, to save it from my curse,
