Classic Poem

Now through the mighty pulses of the land
Throbbed the dark blood of war; and Sumter's guns
Were the first heart-beats of a better day.
The avenging angel, with a scourging sword
Of fire and death, with triumph on his face,
Swept o'er the nation with the cry of War!
Ten thousand boroughs, dreaming peace, awake.
War in the South, with the South! War! War!
The shame we nourished stings us to the death.

O, fair, false wife, South! lo, thy lord, the North,
Loveth thee still, though thou hast gone astray.
In truth's great court, vain has thy trial been,
For no divorce could there be granted thee.
The child you bore was bitter curse and shame,
And not the child of thy husband, the North.
It has led thee to miry paths, and raised
The gall of despair to thy famished lips;
It were better that such a child should die.

I.

The first year of the war had passed away
When Richard Wain, the planter, sprang to arms.
The day for his departure had been set;
To-morrow it would be, and as the night
Fell on the misty hills, and on the vales,
He sat alone in his accustomed room;
Thinking, he drowsed; his chin couched on his breast;
A dim light wrought at shadows on the walls.
Slowly the sash was raised behind him there.
Perhaps he slept; he did not heed the noise,
And Karagwe sprang in, and faced his foe.
He held a long knife up and brandished it,
And said, "As surely as you call or move,
Tour life will not be worth a blade of grass;
But if you do not call, and sign the words,
That I have written on a paper here,
No harm will come, and I shall go away."
He drew the paper forth; the planter read:
I promise if the deed is ever found
Of Dalton Earl's estate, I in no way
Shall lay a claim to it to make it mine.
I here surrender all my right to it.

"Why, this I shall not sign, of course," he said.
"You might have asked me to give back your Ruth,
And I would not have minded; but your game
Lies deeper than a check upon the queen."

"Sign!" cried the negro; and at Ruth's name,
A sudden madness leaped along his nerves,
Like flame among the dry prairie grass.
"Sign! for unless you sign this writing now,
You shall not live; now promise me to sign!"
He caught the planter fiercely by the throat,
Starting his quailing eyes, "Now will you sign or not?
You have ten seconds more to make your choice."

"Give me the paper then, and I will sign."
The name was written, and the negro went;
But not an hour had passed, before the hounds
Of Richard Wain and Dalton Earl were slipped,
And scenting on his track through stream and field.

II.

The slave first ran toward the hollow tree;
There left the paper signed by Richard Wain,
Disturbing not the deed; but took the Book,
And up the tireless road, tied on and on,
Until he gained the borders of a marsh.

The night was dark, but darker still the clouds
That loomed along the rim where day had gone.
The wind blew cold, and hastened quickly past,
Escaping, like a slave, the hound-like clouds
Whose thunder-barkings sounded in its ears.

And Karagwe had only reached the marsh,
When on his track he heard the savage dogs.
He knew the paths and windings many miles,
And even in the darkness found his way,
And gained a covert island, where a hut,
Built by some poor and friendless fugitive,
Afforded shelter and secure abode.
He tarried here until along the hills
The red-lipped whisper of the morning ran.
Then, when he would have ventured from the door,
A large black hound arose, and licked his hand.
The dog was Dalton Earl's; he started back.

The dream of freedom nourished many years
Seemed withering, and for the moment lost.
For long the slave had thought of liberty,
And worshipped her, as in that elder time
A tyrant's subjects worshipped, praying her
That she would not delay, but hasten forth,
And bridge the hated gulf 'twixt rich and poor,
By freeing all the mass from ignorance,
By lifting up the worthy of the earth,
And making knowledge paramount to wealth.

III.

O strange, that in our age, and in a land
Where liberty was laid the corner-stone,
A slave, perforce, should be obliged to dream,
And dote on freedom, like the poor oppressed
Who lived and hoped two thousand years ago!

And slavery to this slave was like a fruit--
A bitter and a hateful fruit to taste--
The fruit of error and of ignorance,
Made rank with superstition and with crime.

Yet though the fruit was bitter to the core,
Many there were who died for love of it.
O, many they who listen through long nights
To hear a footstep that will never come.
There is not a flower along the border blown,
From Lookout Mountain to the Chesapeake,
But has in it the blood of North and South.

IV.

Karagwe went back, and on a paper wrote,--
"Your dog has harmed me not, and why should you,
That I have never wronged, plot harm to me?
You made me slave, you sold away my bride,
And now you set your hounds upon my track,
Because I seek the freedom that is mine.
Though you have wronged me, still I do you good,
For in an oak, the largest of the grove,
Upon the cotton-field of Richard Wain,
Hid in a hollow near the second limb,
Is the lost deed that holds your house and lands."
The paper fastened round the hound's strong neck,
The negro bade him go, and forth he went;
And Earl read what the slave had written down,
And that day found the deed hid in the tree,
And that day ceased pursuing any more.

For two long weeks the negro in the swamps
Wandered toward the North, living at times
On berries and on fruit. Above him leaned
The tall trees, bower-like 'neath their wrestling arms;
Beneath, the murky waters, black as death,
Stirred only to the plunge of venomed things.
The long, seared grasses clung to every bough
Whose trailing robe hung near the sluggish lymph.
And here and there, among the savage moss,
Blossomed alone some snowy gold-spired flower,
Like God's own church found in a heathen land.
The birds o'erhead, that, plumaged like the morn,
Caroled their sweetness, sang the holy psalms.

V.

But now across his path the negro found
A belt of water falling with the tide.
Two heavy logs he lashed, and launched them out,
Then, with a pole for help in case of need,
Sprang on the float, and drifted down the stream.
Thus for two days he drifted, eating naught
Except the berries growing near the shore.
Then on a cool, bright morning, when the wind
And tide agreed, he saw again the sea.
Far off a buoy was tossing on the waves,
Much like the red heart of the joyful deep--
Much like a heart upon a sea of life;
And ships were in the offing, sailing on
Like the vague ships that with our hopes and fears
Put from their harbors to return no more.

VI.

The raft went oceanward. The negro raised
Upon the pole the coat that he had worn,
Hoping for succor from the distant ships;
And not in vain; for ere the sun had set,
Half starved, he clambered up a vessel's side,
And found himself with friends, and on his way
To freedom, 'neath the steadfast northern star.

VII.

Two years of war, two years of many tears,
And Richard Wain, a captain of renown,
In ranks led on by error, fought and fell.

Within the breast of Coralline, Stanley Thane
Possessed acknowledged empire; all her love
Was poured out on him, and her heart
Stood like an emptied vase. Then from the North
Came rumors of his daring, and the war
Gloomed like a night about her,--he its star.

VIII.

The golden spirit in each lily bloom,
That, pollen-vestured, laughs at care all day
Had closed the doors and shutters of its house.
Forth in the dewy garden, 'neath the stars,
Walked Coralline and Ruth, sad and alone;
For Ruth was owned again by Dalton Earl.

"I grieve," said Coralline, "that Stanley Thane
Left me so rashly, and that he thinks
My hasty words were said with earnest thought.
Would that a bird might fly to him and sing--
'She loves you still, Stanley, she loves you still.'"

Ruth followed quickly, "Your wish is heard;
For I will go to him who once was here,
And say to him the words that you have said."
Then fell the other on the quadroon's neck,
And kissed her through her tears, and promised her
Her freedom, if she went to Stanley Thane.
She did not dream what impulse urged the slave,
Nor that in sending her toward the North
Bearing a message full of trust and love,
She sent a message smeared with blood instead.

For Ruth hoped now for vengeance for her past.
Wronged by her father, she would wreak her hate
Full on her sister, and destroy her peace,
As hers had been destroyed in dark dead days.

IX.

That night she stole a knife, and sharpened it,
And while she drew it up and down the stone,
Sipped from the poison nectar of revenge.
She thought of Stanley Thane, and pitied him
That he should be the victim of her hate;
But wished that Coralline could see him then,
After the violent knife had done its work,
Laid out and ready for his last abode.

X.

So Ruth arose, and when the wine-lipped Dawn,
Gathering his robes about him like a god,
Went up to the great summits of the world
From the black valleys of immeasurable space,
She passed beyond the limit of the vale.

Those she loved best had all been torn away;
The last, her child, was sold she knew not where;
And Coralline too should taste a bitter cup,
Feeling the fury of a deep revenge.

XI.

For many days Ruth journeyed to the North,
And reached at last the camp. She passed the guard,
And in the night discovered Stanley's tent;
Then gliding in, bent o'er him while he slept.
He dreamed of Coralline, and in his sleep
Said--"Coralline, 'tis better to forgive."
And Ruth who heard, cried, "She forgives;
She loves you still, Stanley--she loves you still!"
At this he woke, and saw the woman there,
And saw the weapon raised above his breast,
And a vague horror at the mockery of the words
Left him all powerless, and sealed up his speech.
But one swift hand passed in and grasped the arm,
And snatched the knife, and there before them stood
Karagwe, with Ruth Earl face to face.

XII.

And after, at Fort Pillow, when the storm
Had gone against us, and the traitors slew
Five hundred men who had laid down their arms,
Karagwe was shot, and with a prayer
For his whole country, he fell back and died.

Some, seeking the highest type of noble men,
Compare their heroes with the cavaliers,
Boasting their ancestry through tangled lines;
But I, who care not for patrician blood,
Hold him the highest who constrains great ends,
Or rounds a prudent life with noble deeds.