Just a plea, a prayer or a tear
For mothers who dwell 'neath the shadows
Of agony, hatred and fear?

* * * * *

Weep not, oh my well sheltered sisters,
Weep not for the Negro alone,
But weep for your sons who must gather
The crops which their fathers have sown."

Whitman, in the midst of "The Rape of Florida," a poem in which he related
the taking of the State of Florida from the Seminoles, stops and discusses
the race question. He discusses it in many other poems; and he discusses
it from many different angles. In Whitman we find not only an expression
of a sense of wrong and injustice, but we hear a note of faith and a note
also of defiance. For example, in the opening to Canto II of "The Rape of
Florida":

"Greatness by nature cannot be entailed;
It is an office ending with the man,--
Sage, hero, Saviour, tho' the Sire be hailed,
The son may reach obscurity in the van:
Sublime achievements know no patent plan,
Man's immortality's a book with seals,
And none but God shall open--none else can--
But opened, it the mystery reveals,--
Manhood's conquest of man to heaven's respect appeals.

"Is manhood less because man's face is black?