The Slave Woman

Her eyes are dark with unknown deeps,
Old woes and new despair,
Her shackled spirit feels the thong
That breaks her body bare.

The savage master of her days
Who mocks her passive pain,
How should he know her scorn of him.
Indifferent to the stain?

For in her heart she sees the glow
Of sacrificial fires,
A priestess of a mystic rite
Performed on nameless pyres.

The incident of shame and toil
She takes with idle breath,
For she remembers Africa,
And what to her is death?