Frances Ellen Watkins Harper sets the tone and theme with the first stanza of this poem. Bury me in a free land, which is written in a quatrain format with rhyming couplets. The poem does an excellent job of illustrating the thoughts of liberation that go through the mind of an individual in physical captivity. The poem allows us to sense the feeling of what goes through the mind of a person who is captured and dragged into slavery.
The essence of the poem derived from the lament of a slave, does not seek a glorious place to rest in terms of worldly and more glorious possessions. The poem speaks of being buried outside the realms of slavery, which for the author is beyond such worldly possessions. The articulation here shows that slavery has had a terrible impact on those trapped within its dark shackles, thus making them suck the blood of life. The poor who have lost the will to resist were further affected and their spirits crushed. A person’s spirit is expected to rest in peace after the person has passed away; however, in this poem about slavery, the author alludes to the fact that her spirit “could not rest” in the “land of slaves.” This highlights the demoralizing impact that slavery has had on those who are violently dragged into its terrible dungeon of darkness.
The images in the fourth stanza of this poem are very chilling. Listen to these words: She could not sleep if she saw the whip / Drinking her blood at every terrible cut / And saw her babies ripped from her breast / Like doves quivering from their parents’ nest. This stanza brings to light the serious images that exist in slavery. Harper truly poured out her heart through the words of this stanza in a call for others to stand up against situations that threaten and take lives.
The last stanza speaks of the intention of the author of this poem regarding being free from slavery. This stanza says, I do not ask for a monument, proud and tall / To stop the gaze of passers-by; / All my longing spirit longs for, / Is not to bury myself in a land of slaves. Here we feel the impact of the poem and the author’s intention to be free; Free from hate, violence, tribulation, depressive conditions and indentured servitude even in death.
The quality of this poem is brilliant. Harper’s mastery and articulation of diction in portraying slavery is moving. her words about the mother’s cry of wild despair in the third verse and drinking his blood in every terrible cut in the fourth verse it sends shivers down the spine. This is just an amazing poem of reality that still applies to the modern slavery of the mind in today’s environment and physical slavery in others.
