Read the excerpt of the following poem.
"Reflections on the State of Mind" By Olaudah Equiano
Well may I say my life has been
One scene of sorrow and of pain;
From early days I griefs have known,
And as I grew my griefs have grown:
Dangers were always in my path;
And fear of wrath, and sometimes death;
While pale dejection in me reign'd
I often wept, by grief constrain'd.
When taken from my native land,
By an unjust and cruel band,
How did uncommon dread prevail!
My sighs no more I could conceal.
'To ease my mind I often strove,
And tried my trouble to remove:
I sung, and utter'd sighs between—
Assay'd to stifle guilt with sin.
In his memoir, the author writes about attempted kidnapping of children from his tribe a number of times. Eventually, he and his younger sister were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Using your knowledge of the poem and this piece of historical context, what could the bold-faced lines in the poem refer to?
As he aged, the sadness he experienced continued to grow.
As he grew up, things got increasingly more dangerous.
As he got older, he inflicted grief on others.
As he became a teenager, he became more wild.
