There were three doors of possible escape Open to Brown. With this the first slammed shut. The second followed it a little later With the recapture of the other bridge That cut Brown off from Kagi and the arsenal And penned the larger body of the raiders In the armory. Again the firing rolled, And now the first of the raiders fell and died, Dangerfield Newby, the freed Scotch-mulatto Whose wife and seven children, slaves in Virginia, Waited for him to bring them incredible freedom. They were sold South instead, after the raid. His body lay where the townspeople could reach it. They cut off his ears for trophies. If there are souls, As many think that there are or wish that there might be, Crystalline things that rise on light wings exulting Out of the spoilt and broken cocoon of the body, Knowing no sorrow or pain but only deliverance, And yet with the flame of speech, the patterns of memory, One wonders what the soul of Dangerfield Newby