The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. / Embracing an account of his early life, the redemption by purchase of himself and family from slavery, and his banishment from the place of his birth for the crime of wearing a colored skin

by Lunsford Lane

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(https://www.pgdp.net)

Transcriber's Note:

This work was transcribed from a contemporary printing, not from the 1842 edition. Certain spellings may have been modernized and typographic and printer's errors changed from the original.

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NARRATIVE

OF

LUNSFORD LANE.

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[ORIGINAL.]

The Slave Mother's Address
TO HER
INFANT CHILD.

I cannot tell how much I love
To look on thee, my child;
Nor how that looking rocks my soul
As on a tempest wild;
For I have borne thee to the world,
And bid thee breathe its air,
But soon to see around thee drawn
The curtains of despair.