Chapter II

The slave first ran toward the hollow tree; There left the paper signed by Richard Wain, Disturbing not the deed; but took the Book, And up the tireless road, tied on and on, Until he gained the borders of a marsh.

The night was dark, but darker still the clouds That loomed along the rim where day had gone. The wind blew cold, and hastened quickly past, Escaping, like a slave, the hound-like clouds Whose thunder-barkings sounded in its ears.

And Karagwe had only reached the marsh, When on his track he heard the savage dogs. He knew the paths and windings many miles, And even in the darkness found his way, And gained a covert island, where a hut, Built by some poor and friendless fugitive, Afforded shelter and secure abode. He tarried here until along the hills The red-lipped whisper of the morning ran. Then, when he would have ventured from the door, A large black hound arose, and licked his hand. The dog was Dalton Earl's; he started back.

The dream of freedom nourished many years Seemed withering, and for the moment lost. For long the slave had thought of liberty, And worshipped her, as in that elder time A tyrant's subjects worshipped, praying her That she would not delay, but hasten forth, And bridge the hated gulf 'twixt rich and poor, By freeing all the mass from ignorance, By lifting up the worthy of the earth, And making knowledge paramount to wealth.

III.

O strange, that in our age, and in a land Where liberty was laid the corner-stone, A slave, perforce, should be obliged to dream, And dote on freedom, like the poor oppressed Who lived and hoped two thousand years ago!

And slavery to this slave was like a fruit-- A bitter and a hateful fruit to taste-- The fruit of error and of ignorance, Made rank with superstition and with crime.

Yet though the fruit was bitter to the core, Many there were who died for love of it. O, many they who listen through long nights To hear a footstep that will never come. There is not a flower along the border blown, From Lookout Mountain to the Chesapeake, But has in it the blood of North and South.