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Composed by S. Glover. Cleveland: S. Brainard & Co., 1852. [To Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.] [EPIGRAPH:] The following ballad is founded on fact: Pheobe Morel was the daughter of a wealthy planter in Georgia who had imprudently contracted marriage with a beautiful creol, a slave on the estate of his father; the mother of Pheobe died during the infancy of the child whose father had her educated and attended with the most affectionate solicitude: he had however omitted to execute the necessary forms for her manumission and the sad consequence of his neglect was that immediately after his death his legal representatives claimed the unfortunate Pheobe as a portion of their property. She did not long survive the iniquity, for within a few months of her father's death her lifeless body was found floating down the dark waters of the Savannah. BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE MUSIC FOR THIS SONG IS AVAILABLE AT BROWN'S AFRICAN-AMERICAN SHEET MUSIC 1850-1920 -- AN EXHIBIT AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS' AMERICAN MEMORY ARCHIVE |
1st. I had a dream a happy dream, I thought that I was free; That in my own bright land again A home there was for me: Savannah's tide dash'd bravely on I saw wave roll o'er wave; But in my full delight I woke, And I was still a slave... I dreamt but in my full delight I woke and I was still a slave. 2nd. I never knew a mother's love, Yet happy were my days; For by my own dear father's side, I sang my simple lays; He died, and heartless strangers came, Ere clos'd o'er him the grave, They tore me weeping from his side, And claim'd me as their slave... They tore me weeping from his side, And claim'd me as their slave. |