Stories in Verse | Page 6

bank, but ere he reached the height,?A shriek rang out above the water's roar;?The babe had fallen, and a quadroon girl?Lay fainting near, upon the treacherous sward.?The babe had fallen, but with no injury yet.?Karagwe slipped down upon a narrow ledge,?And reaching out, caught hold the little frock,?Whose folds were tangled in a bending shrub,?And safely drew the child back to the cliff.?The slave had favors shown him after this,?Although he spoke not of the perilous deed,?Nor spoke of any merit he had done.
IV.
By being always when he could alone,?By wandering often in the woods and fields,?He came at last to live in revery.?But little thought is there in revery,?But little thought, for most is useless dream;?And whoso dreams may never learn to act.?The dreamer and the thinker are not kin.?Sweet revery is like a little boat?That idly drifts along a listless stream--?A painted boat, afloat without an oar.
And nature brought strange meanings to the slave;?He loved the breeze, and when he heard it pass?The agitated pines, he fancied it?The silken court-dress of the lady Wind,?Bustling among the foliage, as she went?To waltz the whirlwind on the distant sea.
The negro preacher with the text had said?That when men died, the soul lived on and on;?If so, of what material was the soul??The eye could not behold it; why not then?The viewless air be filled with living souls??Not only these, but other shapes and forms?Might dwell unseen about us at all times.?If air was only matter rarefied,?Why could not things still more impalpable?Have real existence? Whence came our thoughts??As angels came to shepherds in Chaldee;?They were not ours. He fancied that most thoughts?Were whispered to the soul, or good, or bad.?The bad were like a demon, a vast shape?With measureless black wings, that when it dared,?Placed its clawed foot upon the necks of men,?And with the very shadow of itself,?Made their lives darker than a starless night.?He did not strive to picture out the good,?Or give to them a figure; but he knew?No glory of the sunset could compare?With the clear splendor of one noble deed.
He proudly dreamed that to no other mind?Had these imaginings been uttered.?Alas! poor heart, how many have awoke,?And found their newest thoughts as old as time--?Their brightest fancies woven in the threads?Of ancient poems, history or romance,?And knowledge still elusive and far off.
V.
The days that lengthen into years went on.?The quadroon girl who fainted on the cliff?Was Ruth; now, blooming into womanhood,?She looked on Karagwe, and seeing there?Something above the level of the slave,?Watched him with interest in all his ways.
At first through pity was she drawn to him.?While both were sitting on a rustic seat,?Near the tall mansion where the planter dwelt,?A drunken overseer came straggling past,?And seeing in the dusk a female form,?Swayed up to her, and caught her by the arm,?And with an insult, strove to drag her on.?Ruth spoke not; but the negro, with one grasp?Upon the white man, caused her quick release.?He turned, and in the face struck Karagwe.?The patient slave did not return the blow,?But the next day they tied him to a post,?And fifty stripes his naked shoulders flayed.?Stricken in mind at being deeply wronged,?Filled with a noble scorn, that men most learned?Would so degrade a brother race of men,?He wept at heart; no groan fled through his lips.
Yet in a few days he was forced to go?And work beneath the intolerable sun,?Picking the cotton-boll, and bearing it?In a rude basket, on his wounded back,?Up a steep hill-side to the cotton gin.
VI.
Ruth, as she walked the pebbled garden lanes,?Or daily in her hundred household cares,?Thought of the dark face and noble heart?Of Karagwe, and truly pitied him.
He, when the labor of the day was done,?Moved through the dusk, among the dewy leaves,?And, darker than the shadows, scaled the wall,?And waited in the garden, crouching down?Among the foliage of the fragrant trees,?Hoping that she again might come that way.?He saw her through the window of the house,?Pass and repass, and heard her sweetly sing?A tender song of love and pity blent;?But would not call to her, nor give a sign?That he was there; to see her was enough.?Perhaps, if those about her knew he came?To meet her in the garden, they would place?Some punishment upon her, some restraint,?That she, though innocent, might have to bear.?So he passed back again to his low cot,?And on his poor straw pallet, dreamed of her,?As loyally perhaps as Chastelard,?Lying asleep upon his palace couch,?Dreamed of Queen Mary, and the love he gave.
VII.
Ruth was but tinged with shade, and always seemed?Some luscious fruit, with but the slightest hint?Of something foreign to the grafted bough?Whereon it grew. Her eyes were black, and large,?And passionate, and proved the deathless soul,?That through their portals looked upon the world,?Was capable of hatred and revenge.?Her long black lashes hung above