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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 4: THE BLIND SLAVE BOY.
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 BLIND SLAVE BOY.

Air—Sweet Afton.
Come back to me, mother! why linger away
From thy poor little blind boy, the long weary day!
I mark every footstep, I list to each tone,
And wonder my mother should leave me alone!
There are voices of sorrow and voices of glee,
But there’s no one to joy or to sorrow with me;
For each hath of pleasure and trouble his share,
And none for the poor little blind boy will care.
My mother, come back to me! close to thy breast
Once more let thy poor little blind one be pressed;
Once more let me feel thy warm breath on my cheek,
And hear thee in accents of tenderness speak!
O mother! I’ve no one to love me—no heart
Can bear like thine own in my sorrows a part;
No hand is so gentle, no voice is so kind!
O! none like a mother can cherish the blind!
Poor blind one! no mother thy wailing can hear,
No mother can hasten to banish thy fear;
For the slave-owner drives her o’er mountain and wild,
And for one paltry dollar hath sold thee, poor child!
Ah! who can in language of mortals reveal
The anguish that none but a mother can feel,
When man in his vile lust of mammon hath trod
On her child, who is stricken and smitten of God!
Blind, helpless, forsaken, with strangers alone,
She hears in her anguish his piteous moan,
As he eagerly listens—but listens in vain,
To catch the loved tones of his mother again!
The curse of the broken in spirit shall fall
On the wretch who hath mingled this wormwood and gall,
And his gain like a mildew shall blight and destroy,
Who hath torn from his mother the little blind boy!