Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS, by WALT WHITMAN


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ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human
Last Line: Are the things so strange and marvellous you see or have seen?
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; American Civil War; Georgia (state); Sherman, William Tecumseh (1820-1891); United States - History


WHO are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human,
With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet?
Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?

('T is while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines,
Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st to me,
As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.)

Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd,
A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught,
Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.

No further does she say, but lingering all the day,
Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye,
And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by.

What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human?
Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green?
Are the things so strange and marvellous you see or have seen?





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