Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/83

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THE RUNAWAY SLAVE.
77

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 liberty 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.


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,
How wilt Thou speak to-day?—