Hark! from the winds a voice of woe,
The wild Atlantic in its flow,
Bears on its breast the murmur low,
My child is gone!
Like savage tigers o'er their prey,
They tore him from my heart away;
And now I cry, by night by day—
My child is gone!
How many a free-born babe is press'd
With fondness to its mother's breast,
And rocked upon her arms to rest,
While mine is gone!
No longer now, at eve I see,
Beneath the sheltering plantain tree,
My baby cradled on my knee,
For he is gone!
And when I seek my cot at night,
There's not a thing that meets my sight,
But tells me that my soul's delight,
My child, is gone!
I sink to sleep, and then I seem
To hear again his parting scream
I start and wake—'tis but a dream—
My child is gone!
Gone—till my toils and griefs are o'er,
And I shall reach that happy shore,
Where negro mothers cry no more—
My child is gone!