Poems (Gould, 1833)/The Slave Mother's Prayer

by Hannah Flagg Gould

THE SLAVE MOTHER'S PRAYER.

O Thou, who hear'st the feeblest prayer,
 The humblest heart dost see,
Upon the chilly midnight air
 I pour my soul to thee!

I bend a form with ceaseless toil
 Consuming all the day;
And raise an eye that wets the soil,
 As wears my life away.

I lift a hand that's only freed
 Until to-morrow's task;
But how, O God, does nature bleed
 Upon the boon I ask!

How wretched must that mother be,
 (And I 'm the hapless one,)
Who begs an early grave of thee,
 To shield her only son!

I would not that my boy were spared
 To curse his natal hour;
To drag the chains his birth prepared
 Beneath unfeeling power.

Then, ere the nursling at my breast
 Shall feel the tyrant's rod,
O lay his little form at rest
 Beneath the quiet sod!

And when before thine awful throne
 My master shall appear,
A naked spirit, to atone
 For all his dealings here;

If pardoning grace can be bestowed,
 And Heaven has pity then,
For him, who here no pity showed
 Towards his fellow-men,

Thou 'lt spare him, in thy mercy, Lord,
 The sinner's fearful doom—
The wages, for his just reward,
 Of death beyond the tomb.