And the babe who lay on my bosom so,
Was far too white . . too white for me;
As white as the ladies who scorned to pray
Beside me at church but yesterday;
Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.
XVIII.
My own, own child! I could not bear
To look in his face, it was so white.
I covered him up with a kerchief there;
I covered his face in close and tight:
And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,
For the white child wanted his liberty—
Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.
XIX.
He moaned and beat with his head and feet,
His little feet that never grew—
He struck them out, as it was meet,
Against my heart to break it through.
I might have sung and made him mild—
But I dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I knew.
XX.
I pulled the kerchief very close:
He could not see the sun, I swear
More, then, alive, than now he does
From between the roots of the mangles . . where?
. . I know where. Close! a child and mother
Do wrong to look at one another,
When one is black and one is fair.
