Poems (Kennedy)/Manumission

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

MANUMISSION

TODAY we are bound in the shambles
 Nor dream of a swift transition,
Yet tomorrow may bring to us, toiling,
 The hour of manumission.

Today we are stranded in shallows,
 Cast up in a ruck of the lea,
But tomorrow, with lift of the flood-tide,
 We may sail the limitless sea.

Today we grope low in the valley
 'Mid silence and darkness forlorn;
Tomorrow, high up on the hill top,
 We'll sing the clear hymn of the dawn.

And no man may shun the disaster,
 And no man may speed his release;
For today is but life and its heartache,
 Tomorrow, God's infinite peace.