No More Learning

You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think:
Did you ever stand still in your triumph, and shrink
From the stroke of her wounded wing?

XXXI.

(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift! --)
I wish you who stand there five abreast.
Each, for his own wife's joy and gift,
A little corpse as safely at rest
As mine in the mangoes! Yes, but _she_
May keep live babies on her knee,
And sing the song she likes the best.

XXXII.

I am not mad: I am black.
I see you staring in my face--
I know you staring, shrinking back,
Ye are born of the Washington-race,
And this land is the free America,
And this mark on my wrist--(I prove what I say)
Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

XXXIII.

You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!
I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun;
I only cursed them all around
As softly as I might have done
My very own child: from these sands
Up to the mountains, lift your hands,
O slaves, and end what I begun!

XXXIV.

Whips, curses; these must answer those!
For in this UNION you have set
Two kinds of men in adverse rows,
Each loathing each; and all forget
The seven wounds in Christ's body fair,
While HE sees gaping everywhere
Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

XXXV.

Our wounds are different. Your white men
Are, after all, not gods indeed,
Nor able to make Christs again
Do good with bleeding. _We_ who bleed
(Stand off! ) we help not in our loss!
_We_ are too heavy for our cross,
And fall and crush you and your seed.

XXXVI.

I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky.
The clouds are breaking on my brain
I am floated along, as if I should die
Of liberty's exquisite pain.
In the name of the white child waiting for me
In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree,
White men, I leave you all curse-free
In my broken heart's disdain!




_THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. _

~"Pheu, pheu, ti prosderkesthe m' ommasin, tekna? "~

--Medea.


I.