And yet He has made dark things To be glad and merry as light: There's a little dark bird sits and sings, There's a dark stream ripples out of sight, And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass, And the sweetest stars are made to pass O'er the face of the darkest night. VI. But _we_ who are dark, we are dark! Ah God, we have no stars! About our souls in care and cark Our blackness shuts like prison-bars: The poor souls crouch so far behind That never a comfort can they find By reaching through the prison-bars. VII. Indeed we live beneath the sky, That great smooth Hand of God stretched out On all His children fatherly, To save them from the dread and doubt Which would be if, from this low place, All opened straight up to His face Into the grand eternity. VIII. And still God's sunshine and His frost, They make us hot, they make us cold, As if we were not black and lost; And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold, Do fear and take us for very men: Could the whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen Look into my eyes and be bold? IX. I am black, I am black! But, once, I laughed in girlish glee, For one of my colour stood in the track Where the drivers drove, and looked at me, And tender and full was the look he gave-- Could a slave look _so_ at another slave?-- I look at the sky and the sea. X. And from that hour our spirits grew As free as if unsold, unbought: Oh, strong enough, since we were two, To conquer the world, we thought. The drivers drove us day by day; We did not mind, we went one way, And no better a freedom sought. XI. In the sunny ground between the canes, He said "I love you" as he passed; When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains, I heard how he vowed it fast: While others shook he smiled in the hut, As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut Through the roar of the hurricanes. XII. I sang his name instead of a song, Over and over I sang his name, Upward and downward I drew it along My various notes,--the same, the same! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess, from aught they could hear, It was only a name--a name. XIII. I look on the sky and the sea. We were two to love, and two to pray: Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee, Though nothing didst Thou say! Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun: And now I cry who am but one, Thou wilt not speak to-day. XIV. We were black, we were black, We had no claim to love and bliss, What marvel if each went to wrack? They wrung my cold hands out of his, They dragged him--where? I crawled to touch His blood's mark in the dust ... not much, Ye pilgrim-souls, though plain as _this_! XV.