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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FREEDMAN, by                    
First Line: Upon his brow god burned his mark, and seared
Last Line: The torch of freedom in his dusky hands?
Subject(s): Freedom; Poetry Society Of America; Liberty


Upon his brow God burned His mark, and seared
Him with the dusk of caste, and in his soul
The ages woke the stolid fear of men
Who made him vassal of the world.
The outcast son of Ham, his limbs are chained
Upon the vaunted tomb of sage and king;
The human brute that drew beside the ox
To hew the stones and shape the halls of fame.

What though the aeons lit the darkened earth
With Wisdom, and the shining things of Truth?
What though he heard the nations as they passed?
Was his the dream of unknown worlds beyond—
To cross the seas; to climb the Alpine snows;
To see the mist-hung valleys stretch away—
With empires vast and cities filled with gold,
No flaming light of morning suns could bring
One ray of glory to his hut of clay;
And far, dim stars of night moved on, and left
His tortured cries to die upon the wind.

Long, crumbling rows of columns on the Nile,
The walls of Tyre, now heaps of ashes gray—
Beneath the lash he piled them all; nor knew
The wonder of the day wherein he lived;
Nor from its changing splendor claimed one Thing.

What meant to him the Caesars of the East,
With deathless deeds and minstrel songs of woe—
Or giant minds that gave the law, and found
The mystic trail to God that changed mankind!
No dream could light his soul. No vision rise
Of raptured hope, of kingdoms old in power;
But starved, the beaten chattel of his lord,
He counted not their sands' remorseless fall—
Nor knew the hour when king and knave were gone.

Did He, who traced the stars upon the scroll
Of space, create for Man this slave? This dumb
And tortured serf to hew in lurid heat
And look not upward from the ground? In all
The earth the Lord God made no creature such
As he, nor marked his brow. But princes quenched
The light within his brain and slew his soul.
O mighty Sons, who heard his cry come down
The cycles of the Past; who shed your blood
Like summer rain in answer to his prayer—
Shall you in blinded rage go seek him out,
Tear cities down and drive him from the land,
Because ye freed him, and he still is black?
O mighty Souls, who raised his eyes unto
The stars to read of Wisdom, Truth, and Song—
How will you make reply to God, if he
With empty ages at his back shall stand
A vandal at the gateway of the world,
The torch of Freedom in his dusky hands?





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