Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
At Port Royal
By John Greenleaf Whittier (18071892)T
The ship-lights on the sea;
The night-wind smooths with drifting sand
Our track on lone Tybee.
Our good boats forward swing;
And while we ride the land-locked tide,
Our negroes row and sing.
Of music and of song:
The gold that kindly Nature sifts
Among his sands of wrong;
And poor home-comforts please;
The quaint relief of mirth that plays
With sorrow’s minor keys.
Has filled the West with light,
Where field and garner, barn and byre,
Are blazing through the night.
The rout runs mad and fast;
From hand to hand, from gate to gate,
The flaming brand is passed.
Dark faces broad with smiles:
Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss
That fire yon blazing piles.
They weave in simple lays
The pathos of remembered wrong,
The hope of better days,—
The joy of uncaged birds:
Softening with Afric’s mellow tongue
Their broken Saxon words.
O,
To set de people free;
An’ massa tink it day ob doom,
An’ we ob jubilee.
De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves
He jus’ as ’trong as den;
He say de word: we las’ night slaves;
To-day, de Lord’s freemen.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We ’ll hab de rice an’ corn;
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
He leaf de land behind:
De Lord’s breff blow him furder on,
Like corn-shuck in de wind.
We own de hoe, we own de plough,
We own de hands dat hold;
We sell de pig, we sell de cow,
But nebber chile be sold.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We ’ll hab de rice an’ corn;
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
Dat some day we be free;
De norf-wind tell it to de pines,
De wild-duck to de sea;
We tink it when de church-bell ring,
We dream it in de dream;
De rice-bird mean it when he sing,
De eagle when he scream.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We ’ll hab de rice an’ corn:
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
An’ nebber lie de Word;
So like de ’postles in de jail,
We waited for de Lord:
An’ now he open ebery door,
An’ trow away de key;
He tink we lub him so before,
We lub him better free.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
He ’ll gib de rice an’ corn:
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
So sing our dusky gondoliers;
And with a secret pain,
And smiles that seem akin to tears,
We hear the wild refrain.
Nor yet his hope deny;
We only know that God is just,
And every wrong shall die.
Flame-lighted, ruder still:
We start to think that hapless race
Must shape our good or ill;
Oppressor with oppressed;
And, close as sin and suffering joined,
We march to fate abreast.
Our sign of blight or bloom,—
The Vala-song of Liberty,
Or death-rune of our doom!