E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Transcriber's Note: This work was transcribed from a contemporary printing, not from the 1842 edition. Certain spellings may have been modernized and typographic and printer's errors changed from the original. THE NARRATIVE OF LUNSFORD LANE, FORMERLY OF RALEIGH, N.C. Embracing an account of his early life, the redemption by purchase of himself and family from slavery, And his banishment from the place of his birth for the crime of wearing a colored skin. Published By Himself. Boston: Printed for the Publisher: J. G. Torrey, Printer. 1842 NARRATIVE OF LUNSFORD LANE. [ORIGINAL.] The Slave Mother's Address TO HER INFANT CHILD. I cannot tell how much I love To look on thee, my child; Nor how that looking rocks my soul As on a tempest wild; For I have borne thee to the world, And bid thee breathe its air, But soon to see around thee drawn The curtains of despair. Now thou art happy, child, I know, As little babe can be; Thou dost not fancy in thy dreams But thou art all as free As birds upon the mountain winds, (If thou hast thought of bird,) Or anything thou thinkest of, Or thy young ear has heard. What are thy little thoughts about? I cannot certain know, Only there's not a wing of them Upon a breath of woe, For not a shadow's on thy face, Nor billow heaves thy breast,-- All clear as any summer's lake With not a zephyr press'd. TO THE READER. I have been solicited by very many friends, to give my narrative to the public. Whatever my own judgment might be, I should yield to theirs. In compliance, therefore, with this general request, and in the hope that these pages may produce an impression favorable to my countrymen in bondage; also that I may realize something from the sale of my work towards the support of a numerous family, I have committed this publication to press. It might have been made two or three, or even six times larger, without diminishing from the interest of any one of its pages--_indeed with an increased interest_--but the want of the pecuniary means, and other considerations, have induced me to present it as here seen. Should another edition be called for, and should my friends advise, the work will then be extended to a greater length.