Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/48

26 Alas! and am I born for this, To wear this slavish chain? Deprived of all created bliss, Through hardship, toil, and pain? How long have I in bondage lain, And languished to be free! Alas! and must I still complain, Deprived of liberty? Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound, Roll through my ravished ears; Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, And drive away my fears.

A female poet of the same period as Horton wrote in the same strain about freedom:

Make me a grave wher’er you will, In a lowly plain or a lofty hill; Make it among earth’s humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves.

Like Horton, she lived to see her prayer for freedom answered. Of the Emancipation Proclamation she burst forth in joy:

It shall flash through coming ages, It shall light the distant years; And eyes now dim with sorrow Shall be brighter through their tears.

This slave woman was Frances Ellen Watkins, by marriage Harper. Mrs. Harper attained to a