The Lute of Africs Tribe- by Albery Allson Whitman. 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:
The Lute of Africs Tribe by Albery Allson Whitman
When Israel sate by Babel’s stream and wept,
The heathen said, “Sing one of Zion’s songs;”
But tuneless lay the lyre of those who slept
Where Sharon bloomed and Oreb vigil kept;
For holy song to holy ears belongs.
So, when her iron clutch the Slave power reached,
And sable generations captive held;
When Wrong the gospel of endurance preached;
The lute of Afric’s tribe, tho’ oft beseeched,
In all its wild, sweet warblings never swelled.
And yet when Freedom’s lispings o’er it stole,
Soft as the breath of undefiled morn,
A wand’ring accent from its strings would stroll —
Thus was our Simpson, man of song and soul,
And stalwart energies, to bless us born.
When all our nation’s sky was overcast
With rayless clouds of deepening misery,
His soaring vision mounted thro’ the blast,
And from behind its gloom approaching fast.
Beheld the glorious Sun of Liberty.
He sang exultant: “Let her banner wave!”
And cheering senates, fired by his zeal,
Helped snatch their country from rebellion’s grave
Looked through brave tears upon the injured slave,
And raised the battle-arm to break his gyves of steel.
But hushed the bard, his harp no longer sings
The woes and longings of a shackled mind;
For death’s cold fingers swept its trembling strings,
And shut the bosom of its murmurings
Forever on the hearing of mankind.
The bird that dips his flight in noonday sun,
May fall, and spread his plumage on the plain;
But when immortal mind its work hath done
On earth, in heaven a nobler work ‘s begun,
And it can never downward turn again.
Of him, whose harp then, lies by death unstrung —
A harp that long his lowly brethren cheered,
May’nt we now say, that, sainted choirs among,
An everlasting theme inspires his tongue,
Where slaves ne’er groan, and death is never feared?
Yes, he is harping on the “Sea of glass,”
Where saints begin, and angels join the strain;
While Spheres in one profound, eternal bass,
Sing thro’ their orbs, illumined as they pass,
And constellations catch the long refrain.
