Citatepedia^®.com

To The South

ON ITS NEW SLAVERY

Heart of the Southland, heed me pleading now,
Who bearest, unashamed, upon my brow
The long kiss of the loving tropic sun,
And yet, whose veins with thy red current run.

Borne on the bitter winds from every hand,
Strange tales are flying over all the land,
And Condemnation, with his pinions foul,
Glooms in the place where broods the midnight owl.

What art thou, that the world should point at thee,
And vaunt and chide the weakness that they see?
There was a time they were not wont to chide;
Where is thy old, uncompromising pride?

Blood-washed, thou shouldst lift up thine honored head,
White with the sorrow for thy loyal dead
Who lie on every plain, on every hill,

[...] Read more

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Slaves Of Martinique

BEAMS of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten,
As she stands before her lover, with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song:
Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful beauty wrong.
He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's garb and hue,
Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher nature true;
Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman in his heart,
As the gregree holds his Fetich from the white man's gaze apart.
Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver's morning horn
Calls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields of cane and corn:
Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back or limb;
Scarce with look or word of censure, turns the driver unto him.
Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye is hard and stern;
Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never deigned to learn.
And, at evening, when his comrades dance before their master's door,
Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands he silent evermore.
God be praised for every instinct which rebels against a lot
Where the brute survives the human, and man's upright form is not!
As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral fold on fold
Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in his hold;

[...] Read more

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Pharoah

Thus saith Jehovah! let this people go!
The king was on his throne array'd all gorgeously,
In regal purple rich with fretted gold,
And starr'd with sparkling gems, while snowy lawn
Was mingling with its folds luxuriously.
The crown of Egypt was upon his brow,
And her proud sceptre was beside his hand.
The nobles of his land were gather'd round,
Thronging the proud pavilion where he sate;
And the wise men, the Magi of the East,
The Priests, the Soothsayers, Astrologers,
And the most cunning sorcerers, were there.

And also, there, apart from all the rest,
Yet even at the foot of Pharaoh's throne,
Two men array'd in humble garments stood.
One spoke not, but with meekly folded arms,
Awaited silently the king's decree.
His form was finely moulded, and his face
Had much expressive beauty, though his eye

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Le Vampire (The Vampire)

Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,

De mon esprit humilié
Faire ton lit et ton domaine;
— Infâme à qui je suis lié
Comme le forçat à la chaîne,

Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,
Comme à la bouteille l'ivrogne,
Comme aux vermines la charogne
— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!

J'ai prié le glaive rapide
De conquérir ma liberté,
Et j'ai dit au poison perfide
De secourir ma lâcheté.

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Baudelaire
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Deliverance

Master only left old Mistus
One bright and handsome boy;
But she fairly doted on him,
He was her pride and joy.

We all liked Mister Thomas,
He was so kind at heart;
And when the young folkes got in scrapes,
He always took their part.

He kept right on that very way
Till he got big and tall,
And old Mistus used to chide him
And say he'd spile us all.

But somehow the farm did prosper
When he took things in hand;
And though all the servants liked him,
He made them understand.

[...] Read more

poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The World’s Convention Of The Friends Of Emancipation, Held In London In 1840

YES, let them gather! Summon forth
The pledged philanthropy of Earth.
From every land, whose hills have heard
The bugle blast of Freedom waking;
Or shrieking of her symbol-bird
From out his cloudy eyrie breaking:
Where Justice hath one worshipper,
Or truth one altar built to her;
Where'er a human eye is weeping
O'er wrongs which Earth's sad children know;
Where'er a single heart is keeping
Its prayerful watch with human woe:
Thence let them come, and greet each other,
And know in each a friend and brother!
Yes, let them come! from each green vale
Where England's old baronial halls
Still bear upon their storied walls
The grim crusader's rusted mail,
Battered by Paynim spear and brand
On Malta's rock or Syria's sand.!

[...] Read more

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Voice From The Factories

WHEN fallen man from Paradise was driven,
Forth to a world of labour, death, and care;
Still, of his native Eden, bounteous Heaven
Resolved one brief memorial to spare,
And gave his offspring an imperfect share
Of that lost happiness, amid decay;
Making their first approach to life seem fair,
And giving, for the Eden past away,
CHILDHOOD, the weary life's long happy holyday.
II.

Sacred to heavenly peace, those years remain!
And when with clouds their dawn is overcast,
Unnatural seem the sorrow and the pain
(Which rosy joy flies forth to banish fast,
Because that season's sadness may not last).
Light is their grief! a word of fondness cheers
The unhaunted heart; the shadow glideth past;
Unknown to them the weight of boding fears,
And soft as dew on flowers their bright, ungrieving tears.

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Vision Of Columbus - Book 5

Columbus hail'd them with a father's smile,
Fruits of his cares and children of his toil;
With tears of joy, while still his eyes descried
Their course adventurous o'er the distant tide.
Thus, when o'er deluged earth her Seraph stood,
The tost ark bounding on the shoreless flood,
The sacred treasure claim'd his guardian view,
While climes unnoticed in the wave withdrew.
He saw the squadrons reach the rising strand,
Leap from the wave and share the joyous land;
Receding forests yield the heroes room,
And opening wilds with fields and gardens bloom.
Fill'd with the glance extatic, all his soul
Now seems unbounded with the scene to roll,
And now, impatient, with retorted eye,
Perceives his station in another sky.
Waft me, O winged Angel, waft me o'er,
With those blest heroes, to the happy shore;
There let me live and die–but all appears
A fleeting vision; these are future years.

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?

[...] Read more

poem by James Russell Lowell
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

quote by Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!