Who can guess the covered secrets deeply buried in his breast?
Oh, his sons and daughters revel while they slumber unconfessed;
But through all the scorching noon-tide
And beneath the sinless moon,
Toil the fatherless mulatto
And the "beautiful quadroon."
Oh, his sons and daughters revel while they slumber unconfessed;
But through all the scorching noon-tide
And beneath the sinless moon,
Toil the fatherless mulatto
And the "beautiful quadroon."
Oh, thou dark and mighty evil, thou hast left thy curse behind
And uncounted generations shall with quickened vision find,
On the pure and lofty pages of our country's history fair,
One great blot that wide outspreading mars sweet Freedom's record there;
And the cotton-fields shall quiver
With dread mysteries untold,
And the dim swamp-forests shiver
With the secrets black they hold!
And uncounted generations shall with quickened vision find,
On the pure and lofty pages of our country's history fair,
One great blot that wide outspreading mars sweet Freedom's record there;
And the cotton-fields shall quiver
With dread mysteries untold,
And the dim swamp-forests shiver
With the secrets black they hold!
And a mixed, degraded people shall the sunny South invest;
Lawless, ignorant and vicious in their scanty lives unblest;
Will ye thoughtlessly upbraid them and their ignorance descry?
Well might they in truth and candor make to this a just reply:
"Ye have dared to thus degrade us,
And our simple minds to mar,
Come not blindly to upbraid us,
Ye have made us what we are."
Lawless, ignorant and vicious in their scanty lives unblest;
Will ye thoughtlessly upbraid them and their ignorance descry?
Well might they in truth and candor make to this a just reply:
"Ye have dared to thus degrade us,
And our simple minds to mar,
Come not blindly to upbraid us,
Ye have made us what we are."
But not all on Africa's children was the cloud of evil spent,
Faith and Truth's divinest altars by the black-winged bolt were rent;
Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone,
Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own;
With thy bonds of degradation,
Oh, thou mighty power of sin,
Through the gateways of our Nation,
Come no more a traitoress in!
Faith and Truth's divinest altars by the black-winged bolt were rent;
Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone,
Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own;
With thy bonds of degradation,
Oh, thou mighty power of sin,
Through the gateways of our Nation,
Come no more a traitoress in!
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