Or
Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In A Two-Story White House, North.
SHOWING THAT SLAVERY’S SHADOWS FALL EVEN THERE.
by “OUR NIG.”
Dedicated to Pauline Augusta Coleman Gates and Henry Louis Gates, Sr.
In Memory of Marguerite Elizabeth Howard Coleman, and Gertrude Helen Redman Gates
“I know
That care has iron crowns for many brows;
That Calvaries are everywhere, whereon
Virtue is crucified, and nails and spears
Draw guiltless blood; that sorrow sits and drinks
At sweetest hearts, till all their life is dry;
That gentle spirits on the rack of pain
Grow faint or fierce, and pray and curse by turns;
That hell’s temptations, clad in heavenly guise
And armed with might, lie evermore in wait
Along life’s path, giving assault to all.”
—HOLLAND.