Poems Sigourney 1834/The African Mother at her Daughter's Grave
THE AFRICAN MOTHER AT HER DAUGHTER'S GRAVE.
Some of the Pagan Africans visit the burial places of their departed relatives, bearing food and drink;—and mothers have been known, for a long course of years, to bring, in an agony of grief, their annual oblation to the tombs of their children.
Daughter!—I bring thee food,
The rice-cake pure and white,
The cocoa, with its milky blood,
Dates and pomegranates bright,
The orange in its gold,
Fresh from thy favourite tree,
Nuts in their ripe and husky fold,
Dearest! I spread for thee.
Year after year I tread
Thus to thy low retreat,
But now the snow-hairs mark my head
And age enchains my feet;
Oh! many a change of woe
Hath dimmed thy spot of birth
Since first my gushing tears did flow
O'er this thy bed of earth.
There came a midnight cry,
Flames from our hamlet rose,
A race of pale-browed men were nigh,
They were our country's foes.
Thy wounded sire was borne
By tyrant force away,
Thy brothers from our cabin torn
While in my blood I lay.
I watched for their return
Upon the rocky shore
Till night's red planets ceased to burn,
And the long rains were o'er;
Till seeds their hand had sown
A ripened fruitage bore,
The billows echoed to my moan,
Yet they returned no more.
But thou art slumbering deep,
And to my wildest cry,
When pierced with agony I weep,
Dost render no reply.
Daughter! my youthful pride,
The idol of my eye,
Why didst thou leave thy mother's side
Beneath these sands to lie?
Long o'er the hopeless grave
Where her lost darling slept,
Invoking gods that could not save
That Pagan mourner wept:
Oh! for some voice of power
To sooth her bursting sighs,
"There is a resurrection hour!
Thy daughter's dust shall rise!"
Christians!—Ye hear the cry
From heathen Afric's strand,
Haste! lift salvation's banner high
O'er that benighted land;
With faith that claims the skies
Her misery control
And plant the hope that never dies,
Deep in her tear-wet soul.