Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War/"Formerly a Slave"

by Herman Melville

 

"Formerly a Slave."
An idealized Portrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring Exhibition of the National Academy, 1865.

 

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The sufferance of her race is shown,
And retrospect of life,
Which now too late deliverance dawns upon;
Yet is she not at strife.

Her children's children they shall know
The good withheld from her;
And so her reverie takes prophetic cheer—
In spirit she sees the stir

Far down the depth of thousand years,
And marks the revel shine;
Her dusky face is lit with sober light,
Sibylline, yet benign.