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THE BLACK MAN'S LAMENT.
23
"But could you not, your huts around,
Raise plants for food, and poultry rear?
You might, if willing, till your ground,
And then some wants would disappear."
"Work for ourselves and others too?
When all our master's work is o'er,
How could we bear our own to do?
Poor, weary slaves, hot, scourg'd, and sore!
"Sometimes, 'tis true, when Sabbath-bell
Calls White man to the house of pray'r,
And makes poor blacks more sadly feel
'Tis thought slaves have no business there:
"Then Negroes try the earth to till,
And raise their food on Sabbath-day;
But Envy's pangs poor Negroes fill,
That we must work while others pray.
