The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  ’Neath that flow of song and mirth

  Runs the current of despair,

  But the simple sons of earth

  Know not the dead are there!

  They’ll shudder start and tremble,

  They’ll weep in wild despair

  When the solemn truth breaks on them,

  That the dead, the dead are there!

  “Ethiopia”

  Yes! Ethiopia yet shall stretch

  Her bleeding hands abroad;

  Her cry of agony shall reach

  The burning throne of God.

  The tyrant’s yoke from off her neck,

  His fetters from her soul,

  The mighty hand of God shall break,

  And spurn the base control.

  Redeemed from dust and freed from chains,

  Her sons shall lift their eyes;

  From cloud-capt hills and verdant plains

  Shall shouts of triumph rise.

  Upon her dark, despairing brow,

  Shall play a smile of peace;

  For God shall bend unto her wo,

  And bid her sorrows cease.

  ’Neath sheltering vines and stately palms

  Shall laughing children play,

  And aged sires with joyous psalms

  Shall gladden every day.

  Secure by night, and blest by day,

  Shall pass her happy hours;

  Nor human tigers hunt for prey

  Within her peaceful bowers.

  Then, Ethiopia! stretch, oh! stretch

  Thy bleeding hands abroad;

  Thy cry of agony shall reach

  And find redress from God.

  “To Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe”

  SOURCE: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “To Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, February 3, 1854.

  I thank thee for thy pleading

  For the helpless of our race

  Long as our hearts are beating

  In them thou hast a place.

  I thank thee for thy pleading

  For the fetter’d and the dumb

  The blessing of the perishing

  Around thy path shall come.

  I thank thee for the kindly words

  That grac’d thy pen of fire,

  And thrilled upon the living chords

  Of many a heart’s deep lyre.

  For the sisters of our race

  Thou’st nobly done thy part

  Thou hast won thy self a place

  In every human heart.

  The halo that surrounds thy name

  Hath reached from shore to shore

  But thy best and brightest fame

  Is the blessing of the poor.

  “The Fugitive’s Wife”

  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!”

  “An Appeal to My Countrywomen”

  SOURCE: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “An Appeal to My Countrywomen,” Poems (Philadelphia: 1006 Bainbridge Street, 1896).

  You can sigh o’er the sad-eyed Armenian

  Who weeps in her desolate home.

  You can mourn o’er the exile of Russia

  From kindred and friends doomed to roam.

  You can pity the men who have woven

  From passion and appetite chains

  To coil with a terrible tension

  Around their heartstrings and brains.

  You can sorrow o’er little children

  Disinherited from their birth,

  The wee waifs and toddlers neglected,

  Robbed of sunshine, music and mirth.

  For beasts you have gentle compassion;

  Your mercy and pity they share.

  For the wretched, outcast and fallen

  You have tenderness, love and care.

  But hark! from our Southland are floating

  Sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain,

  And women heart-stricken are weeping

  Over their tortured and their slain.

  On their brows the sun has left traces;

  Shrink not from their sorrow in scorn.

  When they entered the threshold of being

  The children of a King were born.

  Each comes as a guest to the table

  The hand of our God has outspread,

  To fountains that ever leap upward,

  To share in the soil we all tread.

  When ye plead for the wrecked and fallen,

  The exile from far-distant shores,

  Remember that men are still wasting

  Life’s crimson around your own doors.

  Have ye not, oh, my favored sisters,

  Just a plea, a prayer or a tear,

  For mothers who dwell ’neath the shadows

  Of agony, hatred and fear?

  Men may tread down the poor and lowly,

  May crush them in anger and hate,

  But surely the mills of God’s justice

  Will grind out the grist of their fate.

  Oh, people sin-laden and guilty,

  So lusty and proud in your prime,

  The sharp sickles of God’s retribution

  Will gather your harvest of crime.

  Weep not, oh my well-sheltered sisters,

  Weep not for the Negro alone,

  But weep for your sons who must gather

  The crops which their fathers have sown.

  Go read on the tombstones of nations

  Of chieftains who masterful trod,

  The sentence which time has engraven,

  That they had forgotten their God.

  ’Tis the judgment of God that men reap

  The tares which in madness they sow,

  Sorrow follows the footsteps of crime,

  And Sin is the consort of Woe.

  30

  PAULINE HOPKINS

  (1859–1930)

  Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins was born in Portland, Maine, and lived the majority of her life in Boston. A celebrated writer and magazine editor, Hopkins wrote novels, journalism, pamphlets, and musical plays, and had key roles in the founding and editing of the black magazines Colored American Magazine, Voice of the Negro, and New Era Magazine. Her creative breadth and the force of her prose made Hopkins one of the prominent black intellectuals of her time.

  The following excerpts show Hopkins’s range: the first from her successful musical, or “ballad opera,” Peculiar Sam and the second, a m
ystery story, “Talma Gordon.” In Peculiar Sam, written when Hopkins was only twenty, comic dialect gives way to “proper” speech for successful characters in freedom. “Talma Gordon” is a gothic mystery involving race, inheritance, and romance.

  Selections from Peculiar Sam, or, the Underground Railroad, a Musical Drama in Four Acts (1879)

  SOURCE: Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, Peculiar Sam, or, the Underground Railroad (Boston: Hopkins’ Colored Troubadors, 1879). Electronic edition by Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., 2017.

  ACT III

  (Time, night. Banks of a river. River at back. Trees and shrubbery along banks. Enter party led by SAM)

  SAM: (looks around) See hyar Mammy, I hope nuthin’ aint happened to Jinny, kase when I was on de top ob dat las’ hill we crossed ‘pears like I seed a lot ob white folks comin’.

  MAMMY: It’s only through de blessin’ ob de Lor’, we haint been tooken long ‘go. I don’t neber see wha’s got inter Marser’s dogs.

  SAM: Mammy dar aint a dog widin’ ten mile roun’ Marser’s place, dat aint so sick he kan’t hol’ his head up. ’Deed Mammy a chile could play wif ’em.

  MAMMY: (holds up her hands in astonishment) Wha! Wha’ you been doin’ to Marser’s dogs? Why boy he’ll kill us.

  SAM: He will sho nuff Mammy ef he ketches us. Marse he hab plenty ob money an’ I thought I’d done nuff to ‘sarve some ob it, an’ I jes helped mysel’ to a pocket full. An’ wif some ob it I bought de stuff wha’ fixed dem dogs; ’deed I did, kase dis chile am no fool.

  MAMMY: (more surprised) Been stealin’ too. (groans) I neber ‘spected dat ob you Sam.

  SAM: No use Mammy, we mus’ hab money, de ’litioners am good frien’s to us, but money’s ebery man’s frien’, an’ll neber ’tray eben a forsook coon.

  JUNO: (has been looking anxiously up the road) Dey’s comin Mammy! Here’s Jinny Sam.

  (All rush to look up road. VIRGINIA sings solo, all join in chorus. At close enter CAESAR, VIRGINIA, and PETE, throw down bundles, embrace)

  CAESAR: Well my chillern, we’s almos’ free de dark valley, le’s sing one mo’ hymn ’fo’ we bids good-bye to de sunny Souf.

  CHORUS: “Old Kentucky Home”

  SAM: (as they close picks up bundle) Come on Mammy, come on Jinny, le’s git on board de raf’. I tell you chillern I feels so happy I doesn’t kno’ mysel’. Jes feel dis air, it smells like freedom; jes see dose trees, dey look like freedom. (points across river) an’ look ober yonder chillern, look dar good, dat ar am ol’ freedom himsel’. (gets happy, begins to sing) “Dar’s only one mo’ riber to cross.”

  (All join in song, shake hands, laugh and shout, exit. Singing grows fainter, but louder as raft shoots into sight. JIM rushes panting on the stage, peers after raft. Tableau, music growing fainter)

  (Curtain)

  ACT IV

  (The time is after the war in Canada. The place is an old fashioned kitchen with a fireplace. There is a door at back and a window at the right with closed inside blinds. Mammy sits at table knitting, Caesar, her husband now, sits before fireplace.)

  CAESAR: Ol’ ’ooman it are a long time sense we an’ de chillern lef’ de ol’ home, seems to me de Lor’ has blessed us all. Hyars you an’ me married, Jinny a singist, Juno a school marm; an’ las’ but not leas’, dat boy, dat pecoolar Sam, eddicated an’ gwine to de United States Congress. I tell you ol’ ’ooman de ways ob de Lor’ am pas’ findin’ out.

  MAMMY: Yas ol’ man, an’ hyar we is dis blessed Christmas evenin’, a settin’ hyar like kings an’ queens, waitin’, fer dat blessed boy o’ ours to come home to us. Tell you ol’ man, it’s ’mazin’ how dat boy has ‘scaped de gins an’ sneers ob de worl’, an’ to-day am runnin’ fer Congress dar in Cincinattie, it am ’mazin. D’ ye s’pose he’ll git it ol’ man?

  CAESAR: I don’t spec’ nothin’ else, kase dat boy allers gits what he goes fer. But it’s ’mos’ time fer de train, wonder whar dem gals is.

  (song by VIRGINIA, behind scenes, after style of “Swanee River”)

  MAMMY: (at close) Ol’ man, Ise totable ’tented hyar till I hears dat dear chile sing dem ol’ songs, in dat angel voice ob hers, an’ den I feels so bad, kase dey carries me way bact to dem good ol’ times dat’ll neber return. De ol’ plantation, an’ Mistis an’ ol’ Marser, an’ de dear little lily chillern; thar I kin seem to see de fiel’s ob cotton, an’ I kin seem to smell de orange blossoms dat growed on de trees down de carriage drive. (wipes her eyes) Ise been totable ’tented hyar, but I boun’ to trabble back ’gin ’fo’ I die.

  CAESAR: (wiping his eyes) An’ ol’ ’ooman, ef de ol’ man dies firs’, bury me at ol’ Marser’s feet, under de ’Nolia tree. (Clocks strikes seven. Enter VIRGINIA and JUNO)

  VIRGINIA: O, Mammy isn’t it time for the train yet? It seems as if the hours would never pass (Throws open the blinds, disclosing moonlight on the snow. She stands looking out)

  JUNO: Virginia you’re not the only anxious one. How I do long to see my dear old fellow, my own old Sam. I tell you Mammy I could dance. (places her hands in her apron pockets, and takes two or three steps of a jig)

  MAMMY: (interrupts her) Quit dat, you Juno, quit dat. ’Deed I neber seed sech a crazy head as you has got.

  CAESAR: Mammy do lef’ dat gal ’lone, let her ’joy herself, fer I does like to see young people spirited.

  JUNO: Of course you do Poppy. (hugs him with one arm around the neck) And just to think, if Sam’s elected you’ll be poppy to a representative, and Mammy’ll be mother to one, and I’ll be sister to one. (to VIRGINIA) And what’ll you be to him, Jinny?

  VIRGINIA: Don’t talk about that Juno; there can be nothing done until Jim is found. (turns to come from window)

  MAMMY: (listens) Shh! I thought I hyard sleigh bells!

  (All listen. Tableau. Sleigh bells outside)

  SAM: (outside) Whoa!

  ALL: It’s Sam! (rush to door. Enter SAM, all surround him, and advance to footlights followed by PETE and POMP)

  SAM: (throws off wraps, JUNO carries them off, returns immediately) Yes, it is I, and I cannot tell you how happy I am to be at home once more.

  PETE: Jes tell us one thing cap’n, ’fore you goes eny farther, is you ’lected?

  VIRGINIA: Yes, Sam do relieve our anxiety.

  SAM: I think you may safely congratulate me, on a successful election. My friends in Cincinnati have stood by me nobly.

  MAMMY: Praise de Lord! Chillern I hasn’t nuthin’ lef’ to lib fer.

  PETE: (he and POMP shake hands with SAM in congratulation) Ol’ fellar Ise glad of it. Now I’ll jes step out an’ put up dat annimal, an’ then return. (exit door)

  CAESAR: (goes up to SAM) Lef’ me look at you, I wants to see ef you’s changed eny. (shakes his head solemnly) No, you’s all dar jes de same. (to MAMMY) Ol’ ’ooman, I allers knowed dat boy neber growed dat high fer nuthin’. (Reenter PETE. Company seat themselves)

  JUNO: If things don’t stop happening I shall have to get someone to hold me. Virginia, imagine you and me at Washington leading the colored bong tongs. O my! (fans herself, laughter)

  SAM: (to VIRGINIA) Haven’t you one word for me, Virginia?

  VIRGINIA: Find Jim, and we will be happy.

  SAM: Well, then sing for me. Surely you cannot refuse this request.

  (Solos, quartets, and chorus. Mr. [Sam] Lucas introduces any of his songs that have not been sung elsewhere. At close loud knocking at door)

  MAMMY: Wonder who dat is? (all rise)

  SAM: (hurries to door, opens it. JIM rushes past him into room) Whom do you wish to see sir? I think you have made a mistake.

  CAESAR: (aside) ’Pears like I know dat fellar.

  JIM: (looks smilingly around) Don’t you know me? Well I don’t reckon you do, bein’s Ise changed so. There’s my card. (gives immense card to SAM)

  SAM: (reads) “Mr. James Peters
, Esq., D.D., attorney at law, at the Massachusetts bar, and declined overseer of the Magnolia plantation.”

  (all astonished, VIRGINIA shrinks behind MAMMY)

  JIM: (bows profoundly) Dat’s me. Declined overseer ob de ’Nolia plantation.

  JUNO: Overseer Jim, as I live, turned monkey! (exits hurriedly)

  SAM: If you have come here to create a disturbance, sir, I warn you to go out the way you came in, or I’ll throw you out.

  JUNO: (reenters on a run, with pistol; rushes at JIM) Did you wink, did you dare to wink?

  JIM: (frightened, stumbles over two or three chairs. Groans) O Lord no! (to company) Don’t let her shoot me, Ise oly called hyar to ’stantiate myself an’ be frien’s ‘long wif you. (JUNO lays pistol aside, laughing)

  SAM: Well sir, state your business, and be quick about it.

  JIM: (goes toward VIRGINIA followed by SAM) Virginie, you needn’t be ’fraid on me, kase I isn’t hyar to mislest you. Chile, I kno’s dat warnt no weddin’, de law wouldn’t ’low it nohow. (to all) An’ den you see, I has no free distution ob mysel’ at all, kase Ise got a truly wife, an’ Ise got twins, a boy an’ gal; one’s nam’d Jinny an’ de tother one Sam.

  (laughter)

  SAM: Mr. Peters I congratulate you, you have certainly made the most of your freedom.

  JIM: (strutting up and down) Fac’! An’ you’s all hyar. Mammy and Caesar, an’ the Virginie rose-bird, an’ Juno, and Pete, and Pomp. (slaps SAM on arm) Ol’ ol’ Sam himself. (SAM shrinks) O, I know you feel big, but I can’t forgit dem ol’ times, an’ what a chase I had after you, an’ then jes missed of you.

  MAMMY: Well tell us Jim, wha’ ol’ Marse done, when he foun’ we was gone? (all gather around JIM)

  JIM: Fus’ place you see, I had to walk clean back home, kase dat pecoolar rascal thar, stole all my money. (laughter) An’ when I had done got back, Marse he nigh took all de skin off this ol’ back o’ mine; an’ I declar, I wished I’d gone ’long wif you. Well arter that ol’ Lincoln sent his sogers down dar, an’ Marse he runned ’way an’ seein’ he didn’t stop for his valuables, I propitiated ’em to my private uses. Then I started North, got as far as Massatoosetts, found the eddicational devantages were ’ery perfectible, an’ hyar I is, one ob de pillows ob de Massatoosetts bar.

  SAM: Well Jim, I forgive you freely for all that’s past, and here’s my hand on it. (JIM shakes hands all around to VIRGINIA) And now Virginia I await your answer, when shall our wedding take place?