My mother! if thou love me, name no more My noble birth! Sounding at every breath My noble birth, thou kill'st me. Thither fly, As to their only refuge, all from whom Nature withholds all good besides; they boast Their noble birth, conduct us to the tombs Of their forefathers, and from age to age Ascending, trumpet their illustrious race: But whom hast thou beheld, or canst thou name, Derived from no forefathers? Such a man Lives not; for how could such be born at all And if it chance that, native of a land Far distant, or in infancy deprived Of all his kindred, one, who cannot trace His origin, exist, why deem him sprung From baser ancestry than theirs who can? My mother! he whom nature at his birth Endowed with virtuous qualities, although An AEthiop and a slave, is nobly born. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R.B. SHERIDAN by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE CYNOTAPH by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM SONNET: MAN VERSUS ASCETIC. 4 by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON WINTER SONG by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN AN ADMONITION AGAINST SWEARING, ADDRESSED TO AN OFFICER IN THE ARMY by JOHN BYROM |