I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed.

O who can imagine her heart’s deep emotion,

As she thinks of her children about to be sold;

You may picture the bounds of the rock-girdled ocean,

But the grief of that mother can never be known.

The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom,

That ever has bloomed in her pathway below;

It has froze every fountain that gushed in her bosom,

And chilled her heart’s verdure with pitiless woe;

Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression;