ublic but what corrupts its conscience and
disturbs its fame--for the stain upon the honor must come off
upon the flag. _If, on the other hand, the North stands fast on
the moral ground, no glory will be like your glory_.... What
surprises me is that the slaves don't rise.

On this great subject Mrs. Browning found her husband in full sympathy
with her. Browning himself declared in a letter to an American,
September 11, 1861:

I have lost the explanation of American affairs, but I assure you
of my belief in the justice and my confidence in the triumph of
the great cause. For the righteousness of the principle I want no
information. God prosper it and its defenders.[14]

Two poems by Mrs. Browning at least have to do directly with the Negro
and American affairs. One was _A Curse for a Nation_ contributed to
the _Poems before Congress_ volume. The poet begins somewhat
self-consciously:

I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said "Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea."

She protests her unwillingness to execute such a commission, for, she
says,

I am bound by gratitude
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me.

The angel, however, beats down this unwillingness and the curse
follows, the second stanza reading:

Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom's foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves,--for this crime
This is the curse. Write.

At best, however, _A Curse for a Nation_ can hardly help impressing
one as a little forced. In rather higher poetic vein is the other
poem, _The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point_. This was contributed to
_The Liberty Bell_, a publication issued by the Boston Anti-Slavery
Bazar in 1848. Mrs. Browning feared that the poem might be "too
ferocious for the Americans to publish." The composition is
undoubtedly a strong one. It undertakes to give the story of a young
Negro woman who was bound in slavery, whose lover was crushed before
her face, who was forced to submit to personal violation, who killed
her child that so much reminded her of her white master's face, and
who at last at Pilgrim's Point defied her pursuers. With unusual
earnestness the poet has entered sympathetically into the subject. The
following stanzas ar