Bury Me in a Free Land

by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

For the Bugle.

BURY ME IN A FREE LAND.

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BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS.

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You may make my grave wherever you will,
⁠In a lowly vale or a lofty hill;
You may make it among earth’s humblest graves,
⁠But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not sleep 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 rest if I heard 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 the bloodhounds seizing their human prey;
If I heard the captive plead in vain
⁠As they tightened afresh his galling chain.

If I saw young girls, from their mothers’ 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 calls 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 the land of slaves.—