Page:The black man.djvu/237

 "I break the chains that have been clanging

Down through the dim vault of ages;

I gird up my strength,—mind and arm,—

And prepare for the terrible conflict.

I am to war with principalities, powers, wrongs

With oppressions,—with all that curse humanity.

I am resolved. 'Tis more than half my task;

'Twas the great need of all my past existence.

The glooms that have so long shrouded me,

Recede as vapor from the new presence,

And the light-gleam—it must be life—

So brightens and spreads its pure rays before,

That I read my mission as 'twere a book,

It is life; life in which none but men—

Not those who only wear the form—can live

To give this life to the World; to make men

Out of the thews and sinews of oppressed slaves."

Mr. Wilson is a teacher, and whether the following is drawn from his own experience, or not, we are left to conjecture.

THE TEACHER AND HIS PUPIL.

.—School Room. School in session.

Dramatis Personæ. . A bachelor rising thirty.

. A beautiful girl of sixteen.

I see that curling and high-archéd brow.

"Scold thee?" Ay, that I will.

Pouting I see thee still;

Thou jade! I know that thou art laughing now! 20*