THE PSALM OF THE SLAVE.
God heard it; and he is free.
Loud he sang the Psalm of David,
He a negro and enslaved,
Sang of Israel's victory;
Sang of Zion bright and free.
In that hour when night is calmest,
Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,
In a voice so sweet and clear,
That I could not choose but hear—
Songs of triumph and ascription,
Such as reached the swarth Egyptian,
When upon the Red-Sea coast
Perished Pharaoh and his host.
And the voice of his devotion,
Filled my soul with strange emotion;
For its tones by turns were glad,
Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.
Paul and Silas in their prison,
Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen;
And an earthquake's arm of might
Broke their dungeon-gates at night.
Brings the slave this glad evangel?
And what earthquake's arm of night
Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?
Longfellow.