My mother! if thou love me, name no more My noble birth! Sounding at every breath My noble birth, thou kill'st me. Thither fly, As to their only refuge, all from whom Nature withholds all good besides; they boast Their noble birth, conduct us to the tombs Of their forefathers, and from age to age Ascending, trumpet their illustrious race: But whom hast thou beheld, or canst thou name, Derived from no forefathers? Such a man Lives not; for how could such be born at all And if it chance that, native of a land Far distant, or in infancy deprived Of all his kindred, one, who cannot trace His origin, exist, why deem him sprung From baser ancestry than theirs who can? My mother! he whom nature at his birth Endowed with virtuous qualities, although An AEthiop and a slave, is nobly born. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IDEA: TO THE READER OF THESE SONNETS, INTRODUCTION by MICHAEL DRAYTON SOULS LAKE by ROBERT STUART FITZGERALD DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI: 6. NIGHT LANDING by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER MENAPHON: SAMELA by ROBERT GREENE A SAD, SAD STORY by MOTHER GOOSE A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH by THOMAS PARNELL FAREWELL TO ARMS by GEORGE PEELE |