"
The things evidently borrowed from the surrounding world
undergo characteristic change when they enter the mouth of
the slave. Especially is this true of Bible phrases. "Weep, O
captive daughter of Zion," is quaintly turned into "Zion,
weep-a-low," and the wheels of Ezekiel are turned every way
in the mystic dreaming of the slave, till he says:
"There's a little wheel a-turnin' in-a-my heart."
As in olden time, the words of these hymns were impro-
vised by some leading minstrel of the religious band. The
circumstances of the gathering, however, the rhythm of the
songs, and the limitations of allowable thought, confined the
poetry for the most part to single or double lines, and they
seldom were expanded to quatrains or longer tales, although
there are some few examples of sustained efforts, chiefly
paraphrases of the Bible. Three short series of verses have
always attracted me,--the one that heads this chapter, of one
line of which Thomas Wentworth Higginson has fittingly
said, "Never, it seems to me, since man first lived and
suffered was his infinite longing for peace uttered more plain-
tively.
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