A Dream of Glory,Albery Allson Whitman was a 19th century African American poet who, despite being born into slavery, carved out a career for himself as a poet and orator. He served as a pastor throughout the south and mid-western regions of the United States. His poetry was universally well received and he became known as the “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race”. He is included in the anthology African-American Poetry of the Nineteenth Century where his efforts are described as “attempts at full-blown Romantic poetry”. Some even compared his verse to that written by well-known American and British authors who wrote in the Romantic tradition. One of Whitman’s poems is called Ye Bards of England which extols the virtues of the great literary figures from English history and begins:
A Dream of Glory by Albery Allson Whitman
True glory on the earth is seldom seen,
Tho’ sought by many with a jealous eye;
For where the heavenly birth has ever been,
The heedless footsteps of the world pass by.
The fairest blooms are born of humble weeds,
That faint and perish in the pathless wood;
And out of bitter life grow noble deeds,
To pass unnoticed in the multitude.
But reared by care, within the garden neat,
Luxuriant chances beautify the whole;
While poison lurks beneath each painted sweet,
And shoots a sorrow thro’ the admiring soul.
Poor homeless hearts, unpitied by mankind,
And fortunes shattered in the adverse blast,
Are signals that have marked the march of mind,
Through boasted civ’lization’s glorious past.
The dauntless will that scorns threat’ning defeat,
And breaks thro’ penury’s strong prison bars;
Can plant on triumphs proud his tow’ring feet,
And walk a shining highway to the stars.
