196 “The Slave Auction” (1854) by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

THE SLAVE AUCTION (1854)

The sale began—young girls were there,

Defenceless in their wretchedness,

Whose stifled sobs of deep despair

Revealed their anguish and distress.

And mothers stood with streaming eyes,

And saw their dearest children sold;

Unheeded rose their bitter cries,

While tyrants bartered them for gold.

And woman, with her love and truth—

For these in sable forms may dwell—

Gaz’d on the husband of her youth,

With anguish none may paint or tell.

And men, whose sole crime was their hue,

The impress of their Maker’s hand,

And frail and shrinking children, too,

Were gathered in that mournful band.

Ye who have laid your love to rest,

And wept above their lifeless clay,

Know not the anguish of that breast,

Whose lov’d are rudely torn away.

Ye may not know how desolate

Are bosoms rudely forced to part,

And how a dull and heavy weight

Will press the life-drops from the heart.

From Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1988).