Slave Produce (Poem)

Slave Produce (Poem)

Eat ! they are cates for a lady's lip.
Rich as the sweets that the wild bees sip ;
Mingled viands that nature hath pour'd.
From the plenteous stores of her flowing board,
Bearing no trace of man's cruelty — save
The red life-drops of his human slave.

List thee, lady ! and turn aside.
With a loathing heart, from the feast of pride ;
For, mix'd with the pleasant sweets it bears,
Is the hidden curse of scalding tears.
Wrung out from woman's bloodshot eye,
By the depth of her deadly agony.

Look ! they are robes from a foreign loom,
Delicate, light, as the rose leaf's bloom ;
Stainless and pure in their snowy tint,
As the drift unmarked by a footstep's print.
Surely such garment should fitting be.
For woman's softness and purity.

Yet fling them off from thy shrinking limb.
For sighs have render'd their brightness dim ;
And many a mother's shriek and groan,
And many a daughter's burning moan,
And many a sob of wild despair.
From woman's heart, is lingering there.

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler

Lemuel Howell

1836