The last time I knew kindness
With my mother's arms around me
and a soft voice in my head
Outside the cattle murmured
and the wind blew through the palms
The last time I knew kindness
I was in my mother's arms
My father always told me, boy,
There are bad men and they're waiting
and they'll take you if they could
You may recognize their skin
and you might re cognize their tongue
But they mean to steal your freedom
and they mean to sell you off
I'd never seen a white man
and I'd never seen the sea
A good man can't conceive
the evil things they've done to me
They strip me and they whip me
and they threw me in the hole
Where your pain means you're alive
and your salvation to be sold
Stolen away, stolen away,
They packed us in so tightly
in the darkness and our dirt
The crying of my sister's brothers
The ship pulled into Bridgetown
where they brought us up on deck
Chained together by our hands and feet,
We feared we might be eaten
and studied us and studied us again
They will brutalize and beat you
and your life and soul they'll waste
But the whites will never eat you,
not in keeping with their taste
Stolen away, stolen away,
They threw us back below the deck,
That the wights called on the elders
Not even your own death is yours,
they'll save you from yourself
From this day on your life
is just to supplement their wealth
They sold us off in parcels,
They tore brothers from their brothers,
they stole husbands from their wives
They stole mothers from their children,
love and friendship ripped apart
They broke wills and they broke bodies
They broke souls and they broke hearts
Stolen away, stolen away,
