The Negro-Mother, by Mary Howitt
That you were not born slaves; I'll tell you how
A little negro babe grew sick and died
Without its mother near it.
––She laid him down-and as a bird
Struck with a mortal dart, she reeled,
Yet dared not look again,––she beard
The last, long summons to the field.
She laid him down,––the only one,
Her hope, her love dwelt fondly on.
The only heart that hers had met
With joy, and turned from with regret.
A golden link in slavery's chain,
The manna on life's desert plain,
Which, through the weary day and night,
Made slumber bliss, and labour light.
All pain was hers the slave could know,
Hard toil and insult, taunt and blow;
Yet had her bright-eyed negro child,
Almost to slavery reconciled
Her spirit, for his smiles could bring
Lost pleasures to her soul, and bliss
From out his love burst, like a spring,
That gladdens the parched wilderness.
And toiling 'neath the scorching sun,
She thought but how, when day was done,
Sitting beside the plantain tree,
Clasping his little playful band,
Or joining in his thoughtless glee,
The mother's fondness might expand;
And, thrilling like a finer sense,
Be for all pain a recompence.
––A burning fever came at length,
And bowed his frame, consumed his strength;
And wild throbs of delirious pain
Filled with alarms his infant brain.
He clasped his mother's neck and prayed,
Madly and mournfully, for aid.
But vain his prayer,––she might not stay
To watch beside him through the day.
'Twas harvest-time, when she must bear
Of toil and task, a heavier share,
So, sleepless through the night, she sat
Watching beside her infant's mat,
And with untiring love,
Bent o'er him,––soothed and wiled away
The fears that made his brain a prey;
And bathed his brow, and strove
To please him with each thing she knew
He loved when he was strong;
The tale that oft his wonder drew,
His favourite sport and song.
To lay his little cheek to hers,
And his burning breath to feel,
To hear the feeble plaint that stirs
The heartstrings like love's last appeal.
––But day was up-the toil begun––
And she must go forth with her fettered race.
What heeds the white man, though her son
Be tom from her embrace,
And left to die, of deaths the worst,
In agonies of burning thirst?
What is a negro-infant's sorrow
To him?––a mother's wild distress;
Her groan of utter wretchedness,
Or look of frenzied horror?––
She must away to till the bane
Of her dark race, the blood-nursed cane.
So she laid him down, and forth she went
With a mother's outraged feelings wild,
And as the fiery sunbeams spent
Her frame, not of the scorching ray
She thought, but only how the day,
Hour after hour, might wear away
With her poor abandoned child.
All day she toiled––at night she sped
To her hut, and there he lay––
But cold and stiff, on his dreamless bed,
Where life had passed away!
Alas! for that poor mother's wail,
When she saw his cheek all wet with tears;
And thought what anguish would assail
His soul, when pangs and fears
Came o'er him, and he called in vain
On the only one who was dear to him;
Who could have soothed his dying pain,
And blessed him ere his eyes grew dim,
––At length she calmed her grief and laid
Her infant in the plantain's shade;
And, as if lulling him to rest,
Began a lowly warbled strain;
For she knew in death the child was blest,
And freed from the white man's chain;––
"My little one! my blessed one!
Would I were laid with thee!
Would that my limbs were fetterless
In lands beyond the sea.
Would I could burst life's long dark dream,
And be where thou art now,
Where cool gales from my native stream
Are freshening o'er thy brow.
"Thou art there! thou art there!
I see thee stand On our broad river's shore;
Thy father clasps thy little hand,
And you are slaves no more.
Tell him, thou dear, thou happy one,
Though I wear the white man's chain,
My galling task will soon be done,
And we all shall meet again.
"We all shall meet again, and see,
In the towering lolo's shade,
Our children sporting joyfully
Where we in childhood played.
My child, I will not mourn for thee;
Your shouts are echoing wide,
In the broad shade of the lolo tree,
On our own river's side."
Mary Howitt.
Nottingham, 1826.