Escape
Shadows, shadows,
Hug me round
So that I shall not be found
By sorrow:
She pursues me
Everywhere,
I can't lose her
Anywhere.
Fold me in your black
Abyss,
She will never look
In this,--
Shadows, shadows,
Hug me round
This line presents a contradiction: if sorrow pursues the narrator everywhere and she can’t lose her anywhere, then why wouldn’t sorrow follow her into the Abyss?  Why wouldn’t sorrow look there?  Perhaps sorrow, representative of what white people have inflicted on African Americans, cannot enter into something as sacred to blacks as this black abyss, whatever it is (death or a safe space or a sea of black people).  Perhaps sorrow WON’T look in a place that is so “black” for racist reasons.
Escape