February is Black History Month. All the public domain poems I’m sharing this month are by black poets.

This poem, originally published in 1854—nine years before the Emancipation Proclamation and 11 years before Juneteenth—really stuck with me as I was selecting poems to share over the next couple weeks. Harper makes readers feel pain, and we should. For me, this poem also connects with continued oppression in our world (including the 13th amendment’s prison slavery loophole).

To learn more about Francis E.W. Harper, check out her poets.org bio. Read more of her poems. They all hit hard.

💜Miranda📚

Make me a grave where'er you will,In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;Make it among earth's humblest graves,But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest if around my graveI heard the steps of a trembling slave;His shadow above my silent tombWould make it a place of fearful gloom.

I could not rest if I heard the treadOf a coffle gang to the shambles led,And the mother's shriek of wild despairRise like a curse on the trembling air.

I could not sleep if I saw the lashDrinking her blood at each fearful gash,And I saw her babes torn from her breast,Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

I'd shudder and start if I heard the bayOf bloodhounds seizing their human prey,And I heard the captive plead in vainAs they bound afresh his galling chain.

If I saw young girls from their mother's armsBartered and sold for their youthful charms,My eye would flash with a mournful flame,My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated mightCan rob no man of his dearest right;My rest shall be calm in any graveWhere none can call his brother a slave.

I ask no monument, proud and high,To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;All that my yearning spirit craves,Is bury me not in a land of slaves.