XXXI
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
· (no date)
Published 01/07/1880
Part of The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point
(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!—)
I wish you, who stand there five a-breast,
Each, for his own wife's joy and gift,
A little corpse as safely at rest
As mine in the mangles!—Yea, but she
May keep live babies on her knee,
And sing the song she liketh best.