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Excerpt from Chapter 10 of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Go on, go on, oh ships!
You are loosed from your moorings…[you] are free; [and] I am fast in my chains…a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly [a]round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks…under your protecting wing!
Go on, go on, oh ships!
…Why was I born a man…to make a brute! Why am I a slave? O God, save me…deliver me! Let me be free! [I shall not live and die as a slave.] I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I’ll try it…I had [rather get]…killed running as die standing.
Go on, go on, oh ships!
…Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free!…I will take to the water. I will…walk straight through Delaware…and when I get there, I shall not be required to have a pass.
Go on, go on, oh ships! Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! [Shall I] try it?
Videos
Sheet Music
Second Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers
Composer(s): Leslie Adams, Adolphus Hailstork, John Rosamond Johnson, Hall Johnson, Betty Jackson King, Howard Swanson, John W. Work III
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