I.

An African, thick lipped, and heavy heeled,

With woolly hair, large eyes, and even teeth,

A forehead high, and beetling at the brows

Enough to show a strong perceptive thought

Ran out beyond the eyesight in all things—

A negro with no claim to any right,

A savage with no knowledge we possess

[Pg 29]

Of science, art, or books, or government—

Slave from a slaver to the Georgia coast,

His life disposed of at the market rate;

Yet in the face of all, a plain, true man—

Lowly and ignorant, yet brave and good,

Karagwe, named for his native tribe.

His buyer was the planter, Dalton Earl,

Of Valley Earl, an owner of broad lands,

Whose wife, in some gray daybreak of the past,

Had tarried with the night, and passed away;

But left him, as the marriage ring of death

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