Bury Me In A Free Land Francis Harper
she is 19th century african american poet a prominent early feminist abolitionist civil rights advocate and social reformer a note worthy leader of anti slavery movement a prolific poet and the writer.
In the present poem frances harper who particularly expressed solidarity for african americans who were deprived of their rights and also were subjected to slavery apartheid for centuries. The writer condemns the injustice and cruelty of slavery, expressing disdain for the chains of bondage and suffering endured by enslaved people.
she appeals to sense of kinship and solidarity for oppressed people of America.
Lines
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 grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave; His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom. I could not rest if I heard the tread Of a coffle gang to the shambles led, And the mother's shriek of wild despair Rise like a curse on the trembling air. I could not sleep if I saw the lash Drinking 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 bay Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey, And I heard the captive plead in vain As they bound afresh his galling chain. If I saw young girls from their mother's arms Bartered 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 might Can rob no man of his dearest right; My rest shall be calm in any grave Where 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
The central theme of the poem 'bury me in a free land revolves around the desire for freedom or equality particularly african americans.
It tells about longing society where all individual can live without opression and discrimination. Through vivid imagery harper dipicts emotion she s dwelled into chains of bondage as if at all shes going, die some day she would appeal the undertakers to dig the grave in free land rather not land which is tread by a slave, slave who have suffered long, always have conscientously aspired for rights
Black libetation was subsisted lot of questions of how blacks would prevail with anti slavery and enslaved would get free some day.
She appeals to the sense of kinship and solidarity among oppressed people highlighting the importance of unity in the struggle of justice and equality.
In ‘Bury Me in a Free Land’, Harper’s speaker describes ‘the mother’s shriek of wild despair / Rise like a curse on the trembling air.’ Harper used emotive metaphors to give voice to the experiences of fellow African American women who were silenced and denied autonomy. As the poem concludes, the speaker emphatically declares that ‘All that my yearning spirit craves’ is a ‘land’ where slavery is abolished and its brutality has ended.
As Koritha Mitchell observes in From Slave Cabins to the White House (2020), ‘Harper’s [writing] contributes to the community conversation’ as she ‘asserted her right to belong in the nation’. Harper’s poetry is sophisticated, compelling and politically urgent, and her themes and questioning of identity continue to carry heart-wrenching weight well into the twenty-first century.
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