Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/47

Rh The apostrophe continues through forty-two stanzas, commemorating, with appreciative knowledge of history, the countries, battle fields, and heroes associated with the advance of freedom. After an arraignment of civil rulers and a recreant priesthood, the learned and noble apostrophe thus concludes:

Oh, purify each holy court! The ministry of law and light! That man no longer may be bought To trample down his brother’s right. We lift imploring hands to Thee! We cry for those in prison bound! Oh, in Thy strength come! Liberty! And ’stablish right the wide world round. We pray to see Thee, face to face: To feel our souls grow strong and wide: So ever shall our injured race By Thy firm principles abide.

By some means or other, self-guided, the North Carolina slave, George Moses Horton, learned to read and write. His first book, Poems by a Slave, appeared in 1829, and other books followed until 1865. Like Hammon, and true to his race, Horton is religious, and, like Reason, and again true to his race, he loves freedom. I choose but a few stanzas to illustrate his quality as a poet: