African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

George Reginald Margetson, "Abraham Lincoln" (1928)

While Satan plied his whip and held the rein,
   And knaves and tyrants ruled the market-place,
   There gloating o'er the miseries of a race
Trading in human flesh for private gain;
He heard the moans of slvaes to heaven ascend
   And saw men prostrate, wreathed in grime and mud;
   It made the Moon in agony wring blood
And caused his heart to melt, his breast to rend.
He wept to see the country that he loved
   Cursed with disease, slow-dying at the core,
   To see hounds fattening on the human gore
And his revolting soul with ,pity moved.
   He caught the vision of a brighter day 
   And like a flaming meteor blazed the way. 


Published in Saturday Evening Quill, June 1928

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