Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point, The

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    <strong>Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point, The</strong>

    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 l<tt></tt>ong 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?--

    <bdo>99lib?</bdo>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 &quot;I love you&quot; 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 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,--

    Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee,

    Though nothing didst Thou say.

    Coldly Thou satst behind the sun!

    And now I cry who am but one,

    How wilt Thou speak to-day?--

    XIV.

    We were black, we were black!

    We had no claim to love and bliss:

    What marvel, if each turo lack?

    They wrung my cold hands out of his,--

    They dragged him . . . where ? . . . I crawled to touch

    His bloods mark in the dust! . . . not much,

    Ye pilgrim-souls, . . . though plain as this!

    XV.

    Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong!

    Mere griefs too good for such as I.

    So the white men brought the shame ere long

    Tle 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 u, could not rest:

    Thus we went moaning, child and mother,

    Oo another, oo another,

    Until all ended for the best:

    XVII.

    For hark ! I will tell you low . . . Iow . . .

    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 sed to pray

    Beside me at church but yesterday;

    Though my tears had washed a play 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 fa close and tight:

    And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,

    For the white child wanted his liberty--

    Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.

    XIX.

    He moaned a with his head a,

    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.

    XX.

    I pulled the kerchief very close:

    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

    D to look at one another,

    When one is blad one is fair.

    XXI.

    Why, in that single glance I had

    Of my childs face, . . . I tell you all,

    I saw a look that made me mad . . .

    The masters look, that used to fall

    On my soul like his lash . . . or worse!

    And so, to save it from my curse,

    I twisted it round in my shawl.

    XXII.

    And he moaned and trembled from foot to head,

    He shivered from head to foot;

    Till, after a time, he lay instead

    Too suddenly still and mute.

    I felt, beside, a stiffening cold, . . .

    I dared to lift up just a fold . . .

    As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.

    XXIII.

    But my fruit . . . ha, ha!--<figure>九九藏书</figure>there, had been

    (I laugh to think ont at this hour! . . .)

    Your fine white angels, who have seen

    he secret of Gods power, . . .

    And plucked my fruit to make them wine,

    And sucked the soul of that child of mine,

    As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower.

    XXIV.

    Ha, ha, for the trick of the angels white!

    They freed the white childs spirit so.

    I said not a word, but, day and night,

    I carried the body to and fro;

    And it lay on my heart like a stone . . . as chill.

    --The<u>.99lib.</u> sun may shi as much as he will:

    I am cold, though it happened a month ago.

    XXV.

    From the white mans house, and the black mans hut,

    I carried the little body on,

    The forests arms did round us shut,

    And silehrough the trees did run:

    They asked no question as I went,--

    They stood too high for astonishment,--

    They could see God sit on His throne.

    XXVI.

    My little body, kerchiefed fast,

    I bore it on through the forest . . . on:

    And when I felt it was tired at last,

    I scooped a hole beh the moon.

    Through the forest-tops the angels far,

    With a white sharp finger from every star,

    Did point and mock at what was done.

    XXVII.

    Yet when it was all done aright, . . .

    Earth, twixt me and my baby, strewed,

    All, ged to black earth, . . . nothing white, . . .

    A dark child in the dark,--ensued

    Some fort, and my heart grew young:

    I sate down smiling there and sung

    The song I learnt in my maidenhood.

    XXVIII.

    And thus ere reciled,

    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 ships first anchored 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 s

    Which they dare not meet by day.

    XXX.

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

    Ah, ah! they are ohey hunt in a ring--

    Keep off! I brave you all at once--

    I throw off your eyes like shat sting!

    You have killed the black eagle at , I think:

    Did you and still in your triumph, and shrink

    From the stroke of her wounded wing?

    XXXI.

    (Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!--)

    I wish you, who stand there five a-breast,

    Each, for his own wifes joy and gift,

    A little corpse as safely at rest

    As mine in the mangos!--Yes, but she

    May keep live babies on her knee,

    And sing the song she liketh best.

    XXXll.

    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 Washington-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.

    XXXIII.

    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!

    XXXIV.

    Whips, curses; these must ahose!

    For in this UNION, you have set

    Two kinds of men in adverse rows,

    Each loathing each: and all fet

    The seven wounds in Christs body fair;

    While HE sees gaping everywhere

    Our tless wounds that pay .

    XXXV.

    Our wounds are different.<figure>?９９lib?</figure> Your white men

    Are, after all, not gods 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.

    XXXVI.

    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 libertys 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 brokes disdain!

    <strong>Elizabeth Barrett Browning</strong>

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