Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong! Mere grief's too good for such as I: So the white men brought the shame ere long To strangle the sob of my agony. They would not leave me for my dull Wet eyes!--it was too merciful To let me weep pure tears and die. XVI. I am black, I am black! I wore a child upon my breast, An amulet that hung too slack, And, in my unrest, could not rest: Thus we went moaning, child and mother, One to another, one to another, Until all ended for the best. XVII. For hark! I will tell you low, low, I am black, you see,-- And the babe who lay on my bosom so, Was far too white, too white for me; As white as the ladies who scorned to pray Beside me at church but yesterday, Though my tears had washed a place for my knee. XVIII. My own, own child! I could not bear To look in his face, it was so white; I covered him up with a kerchief there, I covered his face in close and tight: And he moaned and struggled, as well might be, For the white child wanted his liberty-- Ha, ha! he wanted the master-right. XIX. He moaned and beat with his head and feet, His little feet that never grew; He struck them out, as it was meet, Against my heart to break it through: I might have sung and made him mild, But I dared not sing to the white-faced child The only song I knew. XX. I pulled the kerchief very close: He could not see the sun, I swear, More, then, alive, than now he does From between the roots of the mango ... where? I know where. Close! A child and mother Do wrong to look at one another When one is black and one is fair. XXI. Why, in that single glance I had Of my child's face, ... I tell you all, I saw a look that made me mad! The _master's_ look, that used to fall On my soul like his lash ... or worse! And so, to save it from my curse, I twisted it round in my shawl. XXII. And he moaned and trembled from foot to head, He shivered from head to foot; Till after a time, he lay instead Too suddenly still and mute. I felt, beside, a stiffening cold: I dared to lift up just a fold, As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit. XXIII. But _my_ fruit ... ha, ha!--there, had been (I laugh to think on 't at this hour!) Your fine white angels (who have seen Nearest the secret of God's power) And plucked my fruit to make them wine, And sucked the soul of that child of mine As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower. XXIV.