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SLAVE ELOQUENCE.
Nay, speak, thou shadowy Image! thou art fainTo ease the throbbing fulness of thy heart,From lips that, not ungraciously, essayThe white man's language, not the white man's art.
Thou wilt not stoop to curses impotentAnd wild—such weakness is not for the free—With modest gesture and with manly phraseMake clear thy right—adorn thy liberty!
Nor turn to tear thy tyrants—thou hast learnedA lesson holier than wrath or hate;Since the borne sorrow leaves a bosom-riftWhere gentle Charity may penetrate.
Thy speech doth to the stronger race averSome deathless favors—Shakspeare's thought and rhyme,The knitted bond and logic of the law,And Jesu's words, the treasure of all time.
Speaking, he kept the measure of our wish.But we had deemed him eloquent, unheard,For, looking on the wronged and rescued man,His presence pleaded stronger than his word.
