Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/210

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“True love is the same to-day as when the vestal virgins held their mystic lights along the path of virtue. Virtue wears the same vesture that she wore upon the ancient plain that led to fame immortal. Now the royal gates of honor stand ajar for men of courage, souls who will not time their spirit-lyre to suit the common chord. Our nation has known men who held within their palms our country’s destiny: and, smiling in the armor of a fearless truth, have thrown away their lives. Awake, O countrymen, awake, this noble flame. The gods will fan it, and the world shall burn with honor and pure love.”

The bit of dialect verse follows, taken from a poem entitled Apology for Wayward Jim:

“You has often tole us, Massy, We’s as free as we kin be; But we needs some kind o’ check, suh, So’s we’d keep on bein’ free. “Please do’ whip ole Jim dis time, suh; Marse, I ’no’s you’s good an’ kind; Ain’t no slabery on dis ’arth, suh, Like de slabery ob de mind. “You has often said obejence Wuz de key to freedom’s do’— When we l’arned dis golden lesson We wuz free foreber mo’.