She would not move him otherwise,
Although her heart was sad and sore.
That which was venal in his eyes
To her a lovely aspect wore,
And helped to weave the thousand ties
Which bound her to her youth, and all
The loves that she had left behind
When, from her father's stately hall,
She came, her Northern home to find,
With him who held her heart in thrall.
In the dark pictures which he drew
Of instituted shame and wrong,
She saw no figures that she knew,
But a confused and hateful throng
Of forms that in his fancy grew.
Her father's rule, benign and mild,
Was all of slavery she had known;
To her, an Afric was a child--
A charge in other ages thrown
On Christian honor, from the wild
Of savagery in which the Fates
Had given him birth and dwelling-place--
And so, descending through estates
Of gentle vassalage, his race
Had come to those of later dates.
Black hands her baby form had dressed;
Black hands her blacker hair had curled;
And she had found a dusky breast
The sweetest breast in all the world
When she was thirsty or at rest.
Her playmates, in her native bowers,
Were Darkest children of the sun,
Who built the palaces and towers
In which her reign, in love begun,
Gave foretaste of love's later hours.
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