The Slave in Tennessee

This poem was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in The Free South on April 11, 1863.

A slave, say you? and yet he stood
Up straight beneath God's sky,
And very rarely man on earth
Has uttered words more high,
Roll back the scroll of history,
Recall each ancient word,
Find, if you can, a nobler phrase,
By which our hearts are stirred.

A slave! How do we measure man?
Not now by birth or gold,
By spear that led the listed field,
By finer, fairer mould,
With earth's past youth, these teets have passed,
We measure better now -
By size of mind, by warmth of heart,
By soul-light on the brow.

So measure them this man - or slave!
He woke to sudden hope
Of freedom both for soul and limb,
Of wider thought and scope;
His pulses met with cager beat
The first day of the year,
As larks that rise with hurried wing
To greet the day spring near.

Upon that dream of life broke in
The fatal words, "not free,
To save the millions of the south
Our hands must pass by thee."
Oh! many a heart break less than this,
And many a lesser wrong
Has swept away in ruin's flood
Our great men, and out strong.

But he, the slave, looked calmly back
Through grief to Calvary,
Then spoke, with sweetness drawn from thence:
"To make my people free
I take myself with willing heart
The future of the slave,
And bless the hand that passes me.
My helpless race to save."

The measure of a man! Not so!
We need a wider span,
An angel's measure it must be
To measure such a man.
How small to our blind eyes may seem
The struggle and the pain,
Failing the while to comprehend
The victory and the gain.