FLORIN
WEBSITE
©
JULIA
BOLTON HOLLOWAY, AUREO
ANELLO ASSOCIATION, 1997-2010: FLORENCE'S
'ENGLISH'
CEMETERY || BIBLIOTECA
E BOTTEGA FIORETTA MAZZEI || ELIZABETH
BARRETT
BROWNING || WALTER SAVAGE
LANDOR || FLORENCE
IN SEPIA || BRUNETTO
LATINO, DANTE
ALIGHIERI
AND GEOFFREY CHAUCER ||
E-BOOKS
|| ANGLO-ITALIAN
STUDIES || CITY
AND BOOK
I,II,
III,
IV, V || NON-PROFIT
GUIDE TO COMMERCE IN FLORENCE || AUREO
ANELLO, CATALOGUE
||
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett grew up in a slave-owning
family from
Jamaica, knowing she was herself part Black. She hated slavery. She
married Robert Browning, whose family likewise had owned slaves on St
Kitts. She used her poetry to speak out against slavery as a 'crime
against humanity'.
THE
RUNAWAY
SLAVE AT PILGRIM’S POINT
[ADVERTISEMENT, The
following
verses were the
contribution of the Authoress to a volume entitled ‘The Liberty Bell,
by
Friends of Freedom,’ printed in America last year for sale at the
Boston
National Anti-Slavery Bazaar. It is for the use of a few ‘friends of
freedom’
and of the writer on this side of the Atlantic that the verses are now
reprinted. FLORENCE, 1849.]
I
stand
on
the mark, beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim’s
bended knee,
Where
exile changed to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
5
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 come out proud and slow
10
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.
III
15
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;
And
lift my black face, my black hand,
20 Here,
in
your
names, to curse this land
Ye blessed in Freedom’s, evermore.
IV
I
am black = I am black!
And yet God made me, they say:
But
if He did so, smiling, back
25
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
And
yet He has made dark things
30
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,
And
the sweetest stars are made to pass
35
O’er the face of the darkest night.
VI
But
we who are dark, we are dark!
O God, we have no stars!
About
our souls, in care and cark,
Our blackness shuts like prison
bars:
40 And
crouch
our
souls so far behind,
That
never a comfort can they find
By reaching through the
prison-bars.
[VII
Indeed
we live beneath the sky, . .
That great smooth Hand of God,
stretched out
45 On
all His children fatherly,
To bless them from the fear and
doubt,
Which
would be, if, from this low place,
All
opened straight up to His face
Into the grand eternity.]
VIII
50
Howbeit
God’s sunshine and His frost,
They make us hot, they make us
cold,
As
if we ere not black and lost;
And the beasts and birds, in wood
and wold,
Do
fear and take us for very men: =
55 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!
And, 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!
A
Slave looked 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:
We
were 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 liberty
sought.
XI
In the open ground, between the
canes,
He said ‘I love you’ as he passed;
Where
the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,
I heard how he vowed it fast.
75 While
others
trembled,
he sate in the hut
And
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;
80 Backward
and
forward
I drew it along
With my sweetest notes, it was
still the
same!
I
sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might
never guess, from aught they could hear,
That all the song was 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 on 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
We
were black, we were black!
We had no claim to love and bliss;
What
marvel, ours was cast to wrack?
95
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 greater wrong!
100
Grief seemed too good for such as I:
So
the white men brought the shame ere long
To stifle the sob in my throat
thereby.
They
would not leave me for my dull
Wet
eyes! = it was too merciful
105
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:
110 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, =
115 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
120 And
my
own
child! I could not bear
To look in his face, it was so
white;
I
covered him up with a kerchief rare,
I covered his face in, close and
tight:
And
he moaned and struggled, as well might be,
125 For the
white child wanted his liberty =
Ha, ha!
he wanted the master’s 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,
130 Against
my
heart
to break it through.
I might have sung like a mother =
But
I dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I knew.
XX
And
yet I pulled the kerchief close:
135
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
Even
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! =
Therefore,
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, =
150 Till,
after
a
time, he lay, instead,
Too suddenly still and mute.
And
I felt, beside, a creeping cold =
I
dared to lift up just a fold,
As in lifting a leaf of the
mango-fruit.
XXIII
155
But
my fruit! ha, ha! = there had been
(I laugh to think on’t at this
hour!)
Your
fine white angels (who have seen
God’s secret nearest to His power)
And
gathered my fruit to make them wine
160 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 child’s
spirit so.
I
said not a word, but day and night,
165 I
carried the body to and fro;
And
it lay on my heart like a stone = as chill;
The
sun may shine out as much as he will:
I am cold, though it happened a
month ago.
XXV
From
the white man’s house, and the black man’s hut,
170 I
carried the little body on;
The
forest’s arms did round us shut,
And silence through the trees did
run!
They
asked no questions as I went, =
They
stood too high for astonishment, =
175
They could see God rise 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 beneath the moon.
180 Through
the forest-tops the angels far,
With
a white fine finger in 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, -
185 All
changed
to
black earth, = nothing
white, -
A dark child in the dark, = ensued
Some
comfort, and my heart grew young;
I
sate down smiling there, and sung
The song I told you of, for good.
XXVIII
190 And
thus
we
two were reconciled,
The white child and black mother,
thus;
For,
as I sang it, = soft, slow and wild
The same song, more melodious,
Rose
from the grave whereon I sate!
195 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
great sun rideth gloriously!
200
But
the Pilgrims’ ghosts have slid away
Through
the first faint streaks of the morn!
My
face is black, but it glares a scorn
Which they dare not meet by day.
XXX
Ah!
= in their stead their hunter sons!
205
Ah,
ah! they are on me! they
form
in
a ring!
Keep
off! = I brave you all at once! =
I throw off your eyes like a
noisome thing!
You
have killed the black eagle at nest, I think:
Did
you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink
210
From the stroke of her wounded wing?
XXXI
(Man,
drop that stone you dared to lift! = )
I wish you who stand there seven
abreast,
Each
for his own wife’s joy and gift,
A little corpse as safely at rest,
215 Hid in
the mangos! = Yes, but she
May
keep live babies on her knee
And sing the song she liketh best.
XXXII
I
am not mad: I am black!
I see you staring in my face =
220 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
225 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
own child after. From these sands
230 Up to
the mountains, lift your hands,
O Slaves, and end what I began!
XXXIV
Whips,
curses; these must answer those!
For in this UNION, you have set
Two
kinds of men in adverse rows,
235
Each loathing each! and all
forget
The
seven wounds in Christ’s body fair;
While
HE
see gaping everywhere
Our countless wounds that pay no
debt.
XXXV
Our
wounds are different. Your white men
240
Are, after all, not gods indeed,
Nor
able to make Christ’s again
Do good with bleeding. We
who bleed =
(Stand
off) = we help not in our loss, =
We
are too heavy for our cross,
245
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 Liberty’s exquisite pain =
250 In
the
name
of
the white child waiting for
me
In
the deep black death where our kisses agree, =
White
men, I leave you all curse-free
In my broken heart’s disdain!
They say Ideal
Beauty
cannot enter
The
house of anguish. On the threshold stands
An alien Image with the shackled hands,
Called the Greek Slave: as if the sculptor meant her,
(That passionless perfection which he lent her,
Shadowed, not darkened, where the sill expands)
To, so, confront men’s crimes in different lands,
With man’s ideal sense. Pierce to the centre,
Art’s fiery finger! - and break up erelong
The serfdom
of this world! Appeal, fair stone,
From God’s pure heights of beauty, against man’s
wrong!
Catch up in thy divine face, not alone
East
griefs
but
west,
- and strike and shame the
strong,
By
thunders of white silence, overthrown!
Si dice che la Bellezza Ideale non
possa
entrare nella
casa d'angoscia. Una figura straniera sta
sulla soglia,
con le mani incatenate, la Schiava greca:
come se lo scultore eleggesse lei,
(quella perfezione impassibile che egli le
diede,
ombreggiata, non oscurata, là dove la soglia
si apre)
per misurare i crimini degli uomini in diversi
lidi,
con ogni ideale dell'uomo. Penetra
nell'intimo,
infuocato dito dell'arte! - e spezza presto
la schiavitù di questo mondo! Appellati, bella
pietra,
dalla pura sommità della bellezza di Dio,
contro il male dell'uomo!
Cattura nel tuo volto divino, le pene
e dell'oriente e dell'occidente, - e colpisci
e umilia i forti,
da
tuoni
di
bianco
silenzio sconfitti!