Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Let me make the songs for the people, Songs for the old and young; Songs to stir like a battle-cry Wherever they are sung. Not for the clashing of sabres, For carnage nor for strife; But songs to thrill the hearts of men With more abundant life. Let me make the songs for the weary, Amid life’s fever and fret, Till hearts shall relax their tension, And careworn brows forget. Let me sing for little children, Before their footsteps stray, Sweet anthems of love and duty, To float o’er life’s highway. I would sing for the poor and aged, When shadows dim their sight; Of the bright and restful mansions, Where there shall be no night. Our world, so worn and weary, Needs music, pure and strong, To hush the jangle and discords Of sorrow, pain, and wrong. Music to soothe all its sorrow, Till war and crime shall cease; And the hearts of men grown tender Girdle the world with peace.

Heard you that shriek? It rose So wildly on the air, It seem’d as if a burden’d heart Was breaking in despair. Saw you those hands so sadly clasped— The bowed and feeble head— The shuddering of that fragile form— That look of grief and dread? Saw you the sad, imploring eye? Its every glance was pain, As if a storm of agony Were sweeping through the brain. She is a mother pale with fear, Her boy clings to her side, And in her kyrtle vainly tries His trembling form to hide. He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother’s pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins! He is not hers, for cruel hands May rudely tear apart The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart. His love has been a joyous light That o’er her pathway smiled, A fountain gushing ever new, Amid life’s desert wild. His lightest word has been a tone Of music round her heart, Their lives a streamlet blent in one— Oh, Father! must they part? They tear him from her circling arms, Her last and fond embrace. Oh! never more may her sad eyes Gaze on his mournful face. No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks Disturb the listening air: She is a mother, and her heart Is breaking in despair.

The sale began—young girls were there, Defenseless in their wretchedness, Whose stifled sobs of deep despair Revealed their anguish and distress. And mothers stood, with streaming eyes, And saw their dearest children sold; Unheeded rose their bitter cries, While tyrants bartered them for gold. And woman, with her love and truth— For these in sable forms may dwell— Gazed on the husband of her youth, With anguish none may paint or tell. And men, whose sole crime was their hue, The impress of their Maker’s hand, And frail and shrinking children too, Were gathered in that mournful band. Ye who have laid your loved to rest, And wept above their lifeless clay, Know not the anguish of that breast, Whose loved are rudely torn away. Ye may not know how desolate Are bosoms rudely forced to part, And how a dull and heavy weight Will press the life-drops from the heart.

At the Portals of the Future, Full of madness, guilt and gloom, Stood the hateful form of Slavery, Crying, Give, Oh! give me room– Room to smite the earth with cursing, Room to scatter, rend and slay, From the trembling mother’s bosom Room to tear her child away; Room to trample on the manhood Of the country far and wide; Room to spread o’er every Eden Slavery’s scorching lava-tide. Pale and trembling stood the Future, Quailing ‘neath his frown of hate, As he grasped with bloody clutches The great keys of Doom and Fate. In his hand he held a banner All festooned with blood and tears: ‘Twas a fearful ensign, woven With the grief and wrong of years. On his brow he wore a helmet Decked with strange and cruel art; Every jewel was a life-drop Wrung from some poor broken heart. Though her cheek was pale and anxious, Yet, with look and brow sublime, By the pale and trembling Future Stood the Crisis of our time. And from many a throbbing bosom Came the words in fear and gloom, Tell us, Oh! thou coming Crisis, What shall be our country’s doom? Shall the wings of dark destruction Brood and hover o’er our land, Till we trace the steps of ruin By their blight, from strand to strand?

The Dying Words of Goethe “Light! more light! the shadows deepen, And my life is ebbing low, Throw the windows widely open: Light! more light! before I go. “Softly let the balmy sunshine Play around my dying bed, E’er the dimly lighted valley I with lonely feet must tread. “Light! more light! for Death is weaving Shadows ‘round my waning sight, And I fain would gaze upon him Through a stream of earthly light.” Not for greater gifts of genius; Not for thoughts more grandly bright, All the dying poet whispers Is a prayer for light, more light. Heeds he not the gathered laurels, Fading slowly from his sight; All the poet’s aspirations Centre in that prayer for light. Gracious Saviour, when life’s day-dreams Melt and vanish from the sight, May our dim and longing vision Then be blessed with light, more light.

Very soon the Yankee teachers Came down and set up school; But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,— It was agin’ their rule. Our masters always tried to hide Book learning from our eyes; Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery— ’Twould make us all too wise. But some of us would try to steal A little from the book. And put the words together, And learn by hook or crook. I remember Uncle Caldwell, Who took pot liquor fat And greased the pages of his book, And hid it in his hat. And had his master ever seen The leaves upon his head, He’d have thought them greasy papers, But nothing to be read. And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben, Who heard the children spell, And picked the words right up by heart, And learned to read ’em well. Well, the Northern folks kept sending The Yankee teachers down; And they stood right up and helped us, Though Rebs did sneer and frown. And I longed to read my Bible, For precious words it said; But when I begun to learn it, Folks just shook their heads, And said there is no use trying, Oh! Chloe, you’re too late; But as I was rising sixty, I had no time to wait. So I got a pair of glasses, And straight to work I went, And never stopped till I could read The hymns and Testament. Then I got a little cabin A place to call my own— And I felt independent As the queen upon her throne.

Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild, A woman swept by us, bearing a child; In her eye was the night of a settled despair, And her brow was o’ershaded with anguish and care. She was nearing the river—in reaching the brink, She heeded no danger, she paused not to think! For she is a mother—her child is a slave— And she’ll give him his freedom, or find him a grave! ’Twas a vision to haunt us, that innocent face— So pale in its aspect, so fair in its grace; As the tramp of the horse and the bay of the hound, With the fetters that gall, were trailing the ground! She was nerved by despair, and strengthen’d by woe, As she leap’d o’er the chasms that yawn’d from below; Death howl’d in the tempest, and rav’d in the blast, But she heard not the sound till the danger was past. Oh! how shall I speak of my proud country’s shame? Of the stains on her glory, how give them their name? How say that her banner in mockery waves— Her “star-spangled banner”—o’er millions of slaves? How say that the lawless may torture and chase A woman whose crime is the hue of her face? How the depths of forest may echo around With the shrieks of despair, and the bay of the hound? With her step on the ice, and her arm on her child, The danger was fearful, the pathway was wild; But, aided by Heaven, she gained a free shore, Where the friends of humanity open’d their door. So fragile and lovely, so fearfully pale, Like a lily that bends to the breath of the gale, Save the heave of her breast, and the sway of her hair, You’d have thought her a statue of fear and despair. In agony close to her bosom she press’d The life of her heart, the child of her breast:— Oh! love from its tenderness gathering might, Had strengthen’d her soul for the dangers of flight. But she’s free!—yes, free from the land where the slave From the hand of oppression must rest in the grave; Where bondage and torture, where scourges and chains Have plac’d on our banner indelible stains. The bloodhounds have miss’d the scent of her way; The hunter is rifled and foil’d of his prey; Fierce jargon and cursing, with clanking of chains, Make sounds of strange discord on Liberty’s plains. With the rapture of love and fullness of bliss, She plac’d on his brow a mother’s fond kiss:— Oh! poverty, danger and death she can brave, For the child of her love is no longer a slave!

Do you blame me that I loved him? If when standing all alone I cried for bread a careless world Pressed to my lips a stone. Do you blame me that I loved him, That my heart beat glad and free, When he told me in the sweetest tones He loved but only me? Can you blame me that I did not see Beneath his burning kiss The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear The deadly adder hiss? Can you blame me that my heart grew cold That the tempted, tempter turned; When he was feted and caressed And I was coldly spurned? Would you blame him, when you draw from me Your dainty robes aside, If he with gilded baits should claim Your fairest as his bride? Would you blame the world if it should press On him a civic crown; And see me struggling in the depth Then harshly press me down? Crime has no sex and yet to-day I wear the brand of shame; Whilst he amid the gay and proud Still bears an honored name. Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think Your hate of vice a sham, When you so coldly crushed me down And then excused the man? Would you blame me if to-morrow The coroner should say, A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn, Has thrown her life away? Yes, blame me for my downward course, But oh! remember well, Within your homes you press the hand That led me down to hell. I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways, He does not see as man, Within His love I know there’s room For those whom others ban. I think before His great white throne, His throne of spotless light, That whited sepulchres shall wear The hue of endless night. That I who fell, and he who sinned, Shall reap as we have sown; That each the burden of his loss Must bear and bear alone. No golden weights can turn the scale Of justice in His sight; And what is wrong in woman’s life In man’s cannot be right.

Take sackcloth of the darkest dye, And shroud the pulpits round! Servants of Him that cannot lie, Sit mourning on the ground. Let holy horror blanch each cheek, Pale every brow with fears; And rocks and stones, if ye could speak, Ye well might melt to tears! Let sorrow breathe in every tone, In every strain ye raise; Insult not God’s majestic throne With th’ mockery of praise. A “reverend” man, whose light should be The guide of age and youth, Brings to the shrine of Slavery The sacrifice of truth! For the direst wrong by man imposed, Since Sodom’s fearful cry, The word of life has been unclos’d, To give your God the lie. Oh! When ye pray for heathen lands, And plead for their dark shores, Remember Slavery’s cruel hands Make heathens at your doors!