Had I a land that I might call my home,
I would be glad;
But I'm compelled this cruel world to roam
With feeling sad,
Because the Lord, in his wise way, preferred
To make me black;
Therefore the lighter races of this earth
Would keep me back.

Methinks, sometimes, it is a hard, rough lot
The Negro has to bear, willing or not:
He's scorned and driv'n about from door to door
Without an open ear to his implore;
Without a heart's being touched by his sad plight;
Without a hand to help his way to fight,
Save that of God, who doth all things aright.

Two hundred eighty years have past and gone
Since first he trod upon this unkind land:
Two hundred eighty years of basest wrong
Pollute this nation's history, to stand
As long as this creation shall extend,
Though not recorded by historian's pen.

The boasted pride sung by this populace,
The liberty and freedom talked upon
Are not enjoyed by this darker race,
Although these do by right to it belong.

A flag which doth enshroud beneath its fold
Such deeds of crime unwritten and untold,
Save by the hand and tongue of the oppressed,
Or by a friend,—of whom we few possess,—
Is not a flag of freedom, nor for right,
However long it wave, or to what height.

Yet, such a flag does now wave o'er our head,
Intent our names to hide of martyred dead;
But no; the Negro's tongue shall not be hushed,
Nor his protesting feeling e'er be crushed,
Until the hand of dastard crime is stayed
And bound by freedom's laws, by free men made.

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully—so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringéd lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And wingéd pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls
Of her grand family funerals—

Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portals she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.