Explore "The Fugitive's Wife" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was my sad and weary lot / To toil in slavery; / But one thing cheered my lowly cot -- / My husband was with me.
One evening, as our children played / Around our cabin door, / I noticed on his brow a shade / I'd never seen before; / And in his eyes a gloomy night / Of anguish and despair; -- / I gazed upon their troubled light, / To read the meaning there.
He strained me to his heaving heart -- / My own beat wild with fear; / I knew not, but I sadly felt / There must be evil near.
He vainly strove to cast aside / The tears that fell like rain: -- / Too frail, indeed, is manly pride, / To strive with grief and pain.
Again he clasped me to his breast, / And said that we must part:
I tried to speak -- but, oh! it seemed / An arrow reached my heart.
"Bear not! " I cried, "unto your grave, / The yoke you've borne from birth; / No longer live a helpless slave, / The meanest thing on earth! "