From “Twasinta’s Seminoles” (Canto IV, XXXVIII)
Since he who looks upon a glorious day
Expiring on the threshold of the West,
Must breathe a thoughtful wish to be away;
And feel within him dying unexprest
The seer-voiced longings of the heart’s unrest;
May we not trust that, in the evermore,
A friendlier clime awaits the pensive breast;
May we not hope to reach a father shore,
And catch the billows listing where they cease to roar?
From Twasinta's Seminoles; or, Rape of Florida (Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1885) by Albery A. Whitman. This poem is in the public domain.
Albery Allson Whitman
Albery Allson Whitman was born into slavery on May 30, 1851, on a farm near Munfordville, Kentucky, in Hart County, what Whitman called “the Green River country.” He had at least one sibling, a sister. His mother died in 1862, and his father died soon after emancipation, leaving Whitman an orphan at age twelve. He remained on the farm where he was born and continued to labor there until he moved, first to Louisville, Kentucky, then to Cincinnati. He later relocated to Troy, Ohio, where he worked and, for five months, attended grammar school.