For hark! I will tell you low, low,
I am black, you see,—
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.
My own, own child! I could not bear
To look in his face, it was so white;
I covered him up with a kerchief there,
I covered his face in close and tight:
And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,
For the white child wanted his liberty—
Ha, ha! he wanted the master-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,
Against my heart to break it through:
I might have sung and made him mild,
But I dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I knew.
XX.
I pulled the kerchief very close:
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
When one is black and one is fair.
XXI.
Why, 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
On my soul like his lash ... or worse!
And so, to save it from my curse,
I twisted it round in my shawl.
XXII.