GoSetaPhire

 APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!

Written by Wymond and published on March 1851.

I present the poem…

THE SLAVE'S SOLILOQUY

How sweet is freedom to the free! Then what

Would not the wretched, horror-stricken slave

Endure, that might purchase freedom too?

Oh, listen to his heart-heaved signs and groans,

As he bewails his wretched lot, and bear

His sad soliloquy!

O, let me have

My liberty! Though I might wander up

And down the earth, a by-word on the tongues

Of men, and friendless live and die, yet let

Me have my LIBERTY.  Though I were sure

That the wild wilderness would be my home,

Where none should be more kind and merciful

Than howling wild beasts, thirsting for my blood,

And naught but fruitless forest trees should shield

Me from the storms of night, yet let me have

My LIBERTY! O, let me wither 'neath

The torrid, summer sun, or wander lost

Upon a springless, shrubless, sandy plain;

Or let me shiver, freeze and die amid

The winds and drifting storms that beat upon

Spitzbergen's frozen brow, if I may have

My LIBERTY! Or let me say farewell,

Forever, to the land that gave me birth,

And let me choose old ocean for my home;

And not a word I'll murmur, when the night

Is black with tempest, and the howling blasts

And hissing waves shall leave the rushing storm,

"While mountains billows rise-ten billows heaped

In one, then rush down, an avalanche

Of brine." And the rattling thunders rule

The tempest with their deaf'ning roar, and let

The lightning ploug the reeling masts. All these

I'll bear, if I may have my LIBERTY.

The friendless world, the wilderness, the heat

Of blazing suns, the frosts of icy North,

Have, all combined, no terrors like the woes

Of Slavery.

O, then creation's lord,

High-gifted tyrant, boasting of thy love

Of liberty, yet robbing Freedom of

Her rights, by chaining down thy equal and

Thy brother, to unending slavery,

Unheeding all his woes, as though thy heart

Were adamant, throw off thy lethargy.

If thou art yet a man, let sympathy--

Let manhood's common ties--let fear of woe,

Thy well-earned due, and which eternity

Shall pay--let justice, shame, and conscience plead

With thee, and urge thee grant the slave that gift,

With which, he loves to live--without which, longs

To die--his rightful Human Liberty.