The Slaves' Soliloquy

The Slaves' Soliloquy

The sultry day is done! How joyously
The cooling breeze (that all day long has slept
In thicket, grove and bow'r, or half awake,
Has softly nestled on the fragrant breast
Of violet or rose, pilf'ring their sweets)
Springs from the mountain's top, with wings new nerved,
Laden with health and beauty!
'Twas accident that made it burst but now
Its pinions o'er my brow and fan my cheek;
'Tis on its way to bless you happy group,
Who on the Balcony with songs and mirth,
Hail its glad coming. What tho' my poor brow
Throb with excessive heat and pain and toil -
Shall the pure air of Heav'n that sports so free
In glorious liberty o'er sea and land,
Fan a poor slave? No, in its fitful mirth
As it flits by, it taunts me. - What care I?
Should it resuscitate my fainting frame,
Twould be that I might better toil and serve
My master on the morrow. That Nature's hand hath made the lovely earth
So passing fair, and given it such a sweet
And smiling grace that all, but slavery, smiles
In joyful sympathy? - Tis nothing to me -
I cannot pluck a violet from its bed,
And breathe its sweets and say 'for me thou bloomest,'
The very birds, whose music is so sweet
To the poor peasant when at early dawn
they at his cottage casement call 'awake,'
And with their matin songs it vite him forth
To voluntary toil; - yes, even they,
Knock at my heart as with a dagger's point,
By their blest songs of fearless liberty,
Cease; may not these be woes of fancy's make?
A slave may breathe the air, and scent the rose
And hear the warblers sing, as freemen do;
Cheer up, poor slaves. I'll pluck this beauteous rose
And bear it my boy - my darling boy,
My boy? My darling boy? - oh, burst my heart
He's not my boy, he is my master's slave!
Hence scentless rose! - There's nought on earth for me;
That which should be to man a source of bliss
Is bitterness to me. Each sense, each wish,
Each natural affection of the soul,
Must be denied; aye, when that prattling thing
'Bone of my bone,' clings to my neck with smiles,
And fond caresses and my warm heart springs
To meet his love, I must away with him,
And teach my heart, and his heart too, the ways
Of hatred. Why should my spirit cleave to that
Which subject, not alone to that decay
And transmutation common to all things,
(Such as alone should make a wise man blush
That his proud reason should lay by its strength
And suffer him to love, aught that his heart
Compell'd him to;) but liable to that
Which sinks the natural ills of human life
To a mere dream of woe, compared with it.
Nay slave, love not the boy, nor her who bore him; -
Tomorrow's sun may see them torn away
From me forever!

Oh Heaven! whate'er, beneath thy broad expanse,
There is bitterness; whate'er hath been
Of physical distress, to tear the frame,
Or mental woe to prey upon the heart;
Whatever dreaded or endured, in life
Or death; it is comprised in Slavery!

Zelia

2:36, p. 278-9

1828.11.21

From the Boston Recorder