WHERE are we going? where are we going, <br />Where are we going, Rubee? <br />Lord of peoples, lord of lands, <br />Look across these shining sands, <br />Through the furnace of the noon, <br />Through the white light of the moon. <br />Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, <br />Strange and large the world is growing! <br />Speak and tell us where we are going, <br />Where are we going, Rubee? <br />Bornou land was rich and good, <br />Wells of water, fields of food, <br />Dourra fields, and bloom of bean, <br />And the palm-tree cool and green: <br />Bornou land we see no longer, <br />Here we thirst and here we hunger, <br />Here the Moor-man smites in anger: <br />Where are we going, Rubee? <br />When we went from Bornou land, <br />We were like the leaves and sand, <br />We were many, we are few; <br />Life has one, and death has two: <br />Whitened bones our path are showing, <br />Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing! <br />Hear us, tell us, where are we going, <br />Where are we going, Rubee? <br />Moons of marches from our eyes <br />Bornou land behind us lies; <br />Stranger round us day by day <br />Bends the desert circle gray; <br />Wild the waves of sand are flowing, <br />Hot the winds above them blowing, — <br />Lord of all things! where are we going? <br />Where are we going, Rubee? <br />We are weak, but Thou art strong.; <br />Short our lives, but Thine is long; <br />We are blind, but Thou hast eyes; <br />We are fools, but Thou art wise! <br />Thou, our morrow's pathway knowing <br />Through the strange world round us growing, <br />Hear us, tell us where are we going, <br />Where are we going, Rubee?<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-of-slaves-in-the-desert/
