Bury Me in a Free Land

"Bury Me in a Free Land" is a poem by Frances Harper, an African American abolitionist and poet.

:Make me a grave where'er you will,:In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;:Make it among earth's humblest graves,:But not in a land where men are slaves.

:I could not rest if around my grave:I heard the steps of a trembling slave;:His shadow above my silent tomb:Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

:I could not rest if I heard the tread:Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,:And the mother's shriek of wild despair:Rise like a curse on the trembling air.

:I could not sleep if I saw the lash:Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,:And I saw her babes torn from her breast,:Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

:I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay:Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,:And I heard the captive plead in vain:As they bound afresh his galling chain.

:If I saw young girls from their mother's arms:Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,:My eye would flash with a mournful flame,:My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

:I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might:Can rob no man of his dearest right;:My rest shall be calm in any grave:Where none can call his brother a slave.

:I ask no monument, proud and high,:To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;:All that my yearning spirit craves,:Is bury me not in a land of slaves.