Explore "The Slave Singing at Midnight" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Loud he sang the psalm of David! / He, a Negro and enslaved, / Sang of Israel's victory, / Sang of Zion, bright and free.
In that hour, when night is calmest, / Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist, / In a voice so sweet and clear / That I could not choose but hear,
Songs of triumph, and ascriptions, / Such as reached the swart Egyptians, / When upon the Red Sea coast / Perished Pharaoh and his host.
And the voice of his devotion / Filled my soul with strange emotion; / For its tones by turns were glad, / Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.
Paul and Silas, in their prison, / Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen, / And an earthquake's arm of might / Broke their dungeon-gates at night.
But, alas! what holy angel / Brings the Slave this glad evangel? / And what earthquake's arm of might / Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?