I pity the slave mother, careworn and weary, <br />Who sighs as she presses her babe to her breast; <br />I lament her sad fate, all so hopeless and dreary, <br />I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed. <br />O who can imagine her heart's deep emotion, <br />As she thinks of her children about to be sold; <br />You may picture the bounds of the rock-girdled ocean, <br />But the grief of that mother can never be known. <br /> <br />The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom, <br />That ever has bloomed in her path-way below; <br />It has froze every fountain that gushed in her bosom, <br />And chilled her heart's verdure with pitiless woe; <br />Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression; <br />Her husband still doomed in its desert to stay; <br />No arm to protect from the tyrant's aggression- <br />She must weep as she treads on her desolate way. <br /> <br />O, slave mother, hope! see-the nation is shaking! <br />The arm of the Lord is awake to thy wrong! <br />The slave-holder's heart now with terror is quaking, <br />Salvation and Mercy to Heaven belong! <br />Rejoice, O rejoice! for the child thou art rearing, <br />May one day lift up its unmanacled form, <br />While hope, to thy heart, like the rain-bow so cheering, <br />Is born, like the rain-bow, 'mid tempest and storm.<br /><br />Anonymous Americas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/o-pity-the-slave-mother/
