Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Poems

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.
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Do you blame me that I loved him?
If when standing all alone
I cried for bread a careless world
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Do you see this grain of sand
Lying loosely in my hand?
Do you know to me it brought
Just a simple loving thought?
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"The dying words of Goethe."


"Light! more light! the shadows deepen,
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Two little children sit by my side,
I call them Lily and Daffodil;
I gaze on them with a mother's pride,
One is Edna, the other is Will.
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God bless our native land,
Land of the newly free,
Oh may she ever stand
For truth and liberty.
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Thank God for little children,
Bright flowers by earth's wayside,
The dancing, joyous lifeboats
Upon life's stormy tide.
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Sharers of a common country,
They had met in deadly strife;
Men who should have been as brothers
Madly sought each other's life.
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'Twas a fearful night -- the tempest raved
With loud and wrathful pride,
The storm-king harnessed his lightning steeds,
And rode on the raging tide.
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Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seemed as if a burden'd heart
Was breaking in despair.
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