Bury Me in a Free Land

[TheBlues]

Poem by: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

 

 

Make me a grave where'er you will,

In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;

Make it among earth's humblest graves,

But not in a land where men are slaves.

 

I could not rest if around my grave

I heard the steps of a trembling slave;

His shadow above my silent tomb

Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

 

I could not rest if I heard the tread

Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,

And the mother's shriek of wild despair

Rise like a curse on the trembling air.

 

I could not sleep if I saw the lash

Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,

And I saw her babes torn from her breast,

Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

 

I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay

Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,

And I heard the captive plead in vain

As they bound afresh his galling chain.

 

If I saw young girls from their mother's arms

Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,

My eye would flash with a mournful flame,

My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

 

I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might

Can rob no man of his dearest right;

My rest shall be calm in any grave

Where none can call his brother a slave.

 

I ask no monument, proud and high,

To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;

All that my yearning spirit craves,

Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

[sharma-arke451]

may be in somalia??

[TheBlues]

I don't care, as long as it is in a muslim country

[Bluelicious]

Beautiful poem, I don't care where I should be buried whether that should be in Somalia or my current country where I live. Since I live here in the west I prefer to be buried in the country where I live. The place where you get buried doesn't make no difference to what will happen to you in your grave.

[raula]

TheBlues;759784 wrote:

Poem by: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

 

 

 

I could not sleep if I saw the lash

Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,

And I saw her babes torn from her breast,

Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

 

 

If I saw young girls from their mother's arms

Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,

My eye would flash with a mournful flame,

My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

 

So poignant & true on what our mothers & sisters left behind battle constantly.