A Voice from the South / By a Black Woman of the South

by Anna J. Cooper

Your temples will I break, your fountains fill,

Your cities raze, your fields to deserts turn;

My heathen fires shall shine on every hill,

And wild beasts roam,

Where stands your home;—

Even the wind your hated dust shall spurn.

I will absorb your very life in me,

And mold you to the shape of my desire;

Back through the cycles of all cruelty

I will swing you,