Looming high over Natchez
Longwood lifts its shining dome
Into the Mississippi sky,

Shows rows of arching windows,
Lace-trimmed galleries,
Massive chimneys.

What overweening pride
Wrought this octagon
Of brick and wood?

How many sweating
Black bodies strained, died
To pile it all together,

Slaved painfully in cotton fields
To raise the cash that paid
To build this final excess?

The raw inside, unfinished,
Echoes now to tourist steps,
Greets gaping stares,

But has no answer
To the thought
Was this ever worth the cost?