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The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings cover

The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings

Chapter 18: THE BEREAVED MOTHER.
By William Wells Brown
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About This Book

A compilation of abolitionist songs and lyric pamphlets intended for anti-slavery gatherings, offering moral appeals, narratives of suffering, and calls to collective action. Poems dramatize the anguish of enslaved mothers, the fate of separated families, and the experiences of fugitives guided by the North Star, while urging political and religious solidarity against slavery. Several pieces adapt their words to familiar popular airs to facilitate communal singing, and the collection blends emotional testimony, exhortation, and patriotic imagery to mobilize audiences for emancipation.

THE BEREAVED MOTHER.

Air—Kathleen O’More.
O, deep was the anguish of the slave mother’s heart,
When called from her darling forever to part;
So grieved that lone mother, that heart-broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.
The lash of the master her deep sorrows mock,
While the child of her bosom is sold on the block;
Yet loud shrieked that mother, poor heart-broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.
The babe in return, for its fond mother cries,
While the sound of their wailings, together arise;
They shriek for each other, the child and the mother,
In sorrow and woe.
The harsh auctioneer, to sympathy cold,
Tears the babe from its mother and sells it for gold;
While the infant and mother, loud shriek for each other,
In sorrow and woe.
At last came the parting of mother and child,
Her brain reeled with madness, that mother was wild;
Then the lash could not smother the shrieks of that mother,
Of sorrow and woe.
The child was borne off to a far distant clime,
While the mother was left in anguish to pine;
But reason departed, and she sank broken-hearted,
In sorrow and woe.
That poor mourning mother, of reason bereft,
Soon ended her sorrows and sank cold in death;
Thus died that slave mother, poor heart-broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.
O, list ye kind mothers to the cries of the slave;
The parents and children implore you to save;
Go! rescue the mothers, the sisters and brothers,
From sorrow and woe.