Runagate Runagate

 Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness 
and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror 
and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing 
and the night cold and the night long and the river 
to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning 
and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere
morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep on going

 Runagate
 Runagate
 Runagate

Many thousands rise and go
many thousands crossing over
 0 mythic North
 0 star-shaped yonder Bible city

Some go weeping and some rejoicing 
some in coffins and some in carriages 
some in silks and some in shackles

 Rise and go or fare you well

No more auction block for me
no more driver's lash for me

 If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age, 
 new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes; 
 if you see my Anna, likely young mulatto 
 branded E on the right cheek, R on the left, 
 catch them if you can and notify subscriber.
 
 Catch them if you can, but it won't be easy.

 They'll dart underground when you try to catch them, 
 plunge into quicksand, whirlpools, mazes, 
 torn into scorpions when you try to catch them.


And before I'll be a slave 
I'll be buried in my grave

 North star and bonanza gold
 I'm bound for the freedom, freedom-bound 
 and oh Susyanna don't you cry for me

 Runagate

 Runagate


II.

Rises from their anguish and their power,

 Harriet Tubman,

 woman of earth, whipscarred,
 a summoning, a shining

 Mean to be free

 And this was the way of it, brethren brethren, 
 way we journeyed from Can't to Can.
 
 Moon so bright and no place to hide, 
 the cry up and the patterollers riding, 
 hound dogs belling in bladed air.

 And fear starts a-murbling, Never make it, 
 we'll never make it.
 Hush that now, 
 and she's turned upon us, levelled pistol 
 glinting in the moonlight:
 Dead folks can't jaybird-talk, she says; 
 you keep on going now or die, she says.


Wanted Harriet Tubman alias The General 
alias Moses Stealer of Slaves

In league with Garrison Alcott Emerson 
Garrett Douglass Thoreau John Brown
Armed and known to be Dangerous 

Wanted Reward Dead or Alive

 Tell me, Ezekiel, oh tell me do you see 
 mailed Jehovah coming to deliver me?

Hoot-owl calling in the ghosted air, 
five times calling to the hants in the air.
 
Shadow of a face in the scary leaves, 
shadow of a voice in the talking leaves:

 Come ride-a my train

 Oh that train, ghost-story train 
 through swamp and savanna movering movering,
 over trestles of dew, through caves of the wish, 
 Midnight Special on a sabre track movering movering,
 first stop Mercy and the last Hallelujah.


 Come ride-a my train

 Mean mean mean to be free.

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