Rungate Rungate

Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness

and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror

and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing

and the night cold and the night long and the river

to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning

and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere

morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep on going

        Runagate

                Runagate

                        Runagate

Many thousands rise and go

many thousands crossing over

                                O mythic North

                          O star-shaped yonder Bible city

Some go weeping and some rejoicing

some in coffins and some in carriages

some in silks and some in shackles

          Rise and go or fare you well

No more auction block for me

no more driver's lash for me

    If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age,

    new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes;

    if you see my Anna, likely young mulatto

    branded E on the right cheek, R on the left,

    catch them if you can and notify subscriber.

    Catch them if you can, but it won't be easy.

    They'll dart underground when you try to catch them,

    plunge into quicksand, whirlpools, mazes,

    torn into scorpions when you try to catch them.

And before I'll be a slave

I'll be buried in my grave

    North star and bonanza gold

    I'm bound for the freedom, freedom-bound

    and oh Susyanna don't you cry for me

                  Runagate

                          Runagate

II.

Rises from their anguish and their power,

                          Harriet Tubman,

                          woman of earth, whipscarred,

                          a summoning, a shining

                          Mean to be free

      And this was the way of it, brethren brethren,

      way we journeyed from Can't to Can.

      Moon so bright and no place to hide,

      the cry up and the patterollers riding,

      hound dogs belling in bladed air.

      And fear starts a-murbling, Never make it,

      we'll never make it. Hush that now,

      and she's turned upon us, levelled pistol

      glinting in the moonlight:

      Dead folks can't jaybird-talk, she says;

      you keep on going now or die, she says.

Wanted  Harriet Tubman  alias The General

alias Moses  Stealer of Slaves

In league with Garrison  Alcott  Emerson

Garrett  Douglass  Thoreau  John Brown

Armed and known to be Dangerous

Wanted  Reward  Dead or Alive

      Tell me, Ezekiel, oh tell me do you see

      nailed Jehovah coming to deliver me?

Hoot-owl calling in the ghosted air,

five times calling to the hants in the air.

Shadow of a face in the scary leaves,

shadow of a voice in the talking leaves:

    Come ride-a my train

    Oh that train, ghost-story train   

    through swamp and savanna movering movering,

    over trestles of dew, through caves of the wish,   

    Midnight Special on a sabre track movering movering,

    first stop Mercy and the last Hallelujah.

    Come ride-a my train

        Mean mean mean to be free.

The word runagate sounds like runaway.  It connotes word’s that import tales of slavery.  It also it derives from the word renegade, (16th century) as was Harriet Tubman, and many other slaves that refused to be bound.This poem is also known as Runagate, Runagate http://allpoetry.com/Runagate-Runagate