Anonymous abolitionist poem, in a mid-nineteenth-century hand, entitled 'The Fugitive Slave', with the first line: 'I'm weary yet I cannot sleep'. Apparently unpublished.

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium, on ruled, laid paper. Fair: aged, with a 12.5 x 5 cm section cut away from the top of the first leaf, before the writing out of the poem. 63 lines, divided into six nine-line stanzas. The stanzas are numbered, and the poem is complete. The stanzas are numbered, and the poem is complete. Written from the slave's point of view, with the first stanza reading: 'I'm weary yet I cannot sleep | Dark thoughts of morning make me weep | For at the rising Sun, I'm told | I'll be converted into gold | There's no escape I must be sold | Because my master wants the gold | And I'm his Slave yes I'm his Slave | Because my master wants the gold | And I'm his slave'. Last stanza, describing the slave's flight to Canada: 'At last my dreadful journeys o'er | I'm safe upon the farther shore | St Georges cross floats over me | I've found the land of Liberty. | My youths renewed no more I'm old | That fear is gone of being sold | For now I'm Free, Yes now I'm Free | The fear is gone of being sold | For now I'm Free.' No indication has been found that the poem was ever published.