Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/88

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And thus we two were reconciled,

The white child and black mother, thus:

For, as I sang it, soft and wild

The same song, more melodious,

Rose from the grave whereon I sate!

It was the dead child singing that,

To join the souls of both of us.

I look on the sea and the sky!

Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay,

The free sun rideth gloriously;

But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away

Through the earliest streaks of the morn.

My face is black, but it glared with a scorn

Which they dare not meet by day.

Ah!—in their 'stead, their hunter sons!

Ah, ah! they are on me—they hunt in a ring—

Keep off! I brave you all at once—

I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!

You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think:

Did you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink

From the stroke of her wounded wing?

(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!—)

I wish you, who stand there five a-breast,