The Poetry Of Slavery

 

Mankind has many marks upon its name, many tragedies of its own making.  The subjugating of other people, which still continues to this day, is perhaps its greatest stain.   Men, women and children who are bought sold, used and abused for the profit or enjoyment of others casts shadows upon us all.  In this collection poets of the calibre of Browning, Longfellow, Southey and Melville explore our relationship with this shaming, highlighting the successes and more probable failures of our fallible race.

 

Many of these poems have also been recorded for an audiobook. 

 

Other volumes of poetry about slavery and abolition by such notables as John Greenleaf Whittier, Martin Farquhar Tupper and others are also available as are a wide range on other themes and poets at our imprints Deadtree Publishing & Portable Poetry. 

 

 

Index Of Poems

A Curse For A Nation by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Economy Of Slavery by John Pierpont

Abolition Of Slavery In The District Of Columbia, 1862 by John Greenleaf Whittier

The Slave by Jose Maria de Heredia y Giraud

The Fall Of Slavery by Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Slavery by John Bowring

The Slavery Of Greece by George Canning

Slavery To The Slave by Timothy Thomas Fortune

Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet I By Robert Southey

Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet II by Robert Southey

Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet III by Robert Southey

Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet IV by Robert Southey

Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet V by Robert Southey

Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet VI by Robert Southey

The Hunters Of Men by John Greenleaf Whittier

The Slave Mother by Frances Ellen Watkins

The Christian Slave by James Greenleaf Whittier

The Dying Slave by William Lisle Bowles

The Slave by Robert Anderson

The Slave Auction by E W Harper

The Slave Mother by E W Harper

The Slave Trade, A Poem by Hannah More

A Creole Slave Song (Ah, lo zo-zo chan' dan' branche) by Maurice Thompson

The Slave’s Lament by Benjamin Cutler Clark

The Slave Catcher by Benjamin Cutler Clark

Negro Slave by Charles Dibdin

The Slave holder’s Apology by Benjamin Cutler Clark

What Is A Slave by Benjamin Cutler Clark

The Death Of The Slave by Thomas Hill

The Grave Of The Slave by Sarah Louisa Forten

A Runaway Slave At Pilgrim’s Point by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Slave In The Dismal Swamp by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Slave Trade Merchant by Juan Francisco Manzano

The Slave Girl’s Address To Her Mother by Sarah Louisa Forten

The Slave Dealer by Thomas Pringle

A Dozen Ballads About White Slavery II - The Factory Slave by Martin Farquhar Tupper

The Sailor Who Had Served In The Slave Trade by Robert Southey

The Slave’s Lament by Robert Burns

Epistle Of Condolence From A Slave Lord To A Cotton Lord by Thomas Moore

On Reading Mr Clarkson’s History Of The Abolition Of The Slave Trade by John Wilson

Sweet Meat Has Sour Sauce; Or, The Slave-Trader In The Dumps by William Cowper

Hymn For The First Of August by John Pierpoint

Prayer Of The Abolitionist by John Pierpoint

Prayer Of The Christian by John Pierpoint

The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe To The North Star by John Pierpont

Prayer For The Slave by John Pierpont

A Dozen Ballads About White Slavery IV - The British Slave's Reply To A Political Economist  - Martin Farquhar Tupper

On Liberty And Slavery by George Moses Horton

Slavery by James Ephraim McGirt

The Death Of Slavery by William Cullen Bryant

The Slave’s Singing At Midnight by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Formerly A Slave by Herman Melville

The Slave Ships by John Greenleaf Whittier

The Slave’s Dream by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother by John Greenleaf Whittier

 

 

 

 

 

A Curse For A Nation by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said 'Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.'
 
I faltered, taking up the word:
'Not so, my lord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.
 
'For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me.'
 
'Therefore,' the voice said, 'shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
From the summits of love a curse is driven,
As lightning is from the tops of heaven.'
 
'Not so,' I answered. 'Evermore
My heart is sore
For my own land's sins: for little feet
Of children bleeding along the street:
 
'For parked-up honors that gainsay
The right of way:
For almsgiving through a door that is
Not open enough for two friends to kiss:
 
'For love of freedom which abates
Beyond the Straits:
For patriot virtue starved to vice on
Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion:
 
'For an oligarchic parliament,
And bribes well-meant.
What curse to another land assign,
When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?'
 
'Therefore,' the voice said, 'shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Because thou hast strength to see and hate
A foul thing done within thy gate.'
 
'Not so,' I answered once again.
'To curse, choose men.
For I, a woman, have only known
How the heart melts and the tears run down.'
 
'Therefore,' the voice said, 'shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Some women weep and curse, I say
(And no one marvels), night and day.
 
'And thou shalt take their part to-night,
Weep and write.
A curse from the depths of womanhood
Is very salt, and bitter, and good.'
 
So thus I wrote, and mourned indeed,
What all may read.
And thus, as was enjoined on me,
I send it over the Western Sea.
 
The Curse
 
Because ye have broken your own chain
With the strain
Of brave men climbing a Nation's height,
Yet thence bear down with brand and thong
On souls of others, for this wrong
This is the curse. Write.
 
Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom's foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves, for this crime
This is the curse. Write.
 
Because ye prosper in God's name,
With a claim
To honor in the old world's sight,
Yet do the fiend's work perfectly
In strangling martyrs, for this lie
This is the curse. Write.
 
Ye shall watch while kings conspire
Round the people's smouldering fire,
And, warm for your part,
Shall never dare O shame!
To utter the thought into flame
Which burns at your heart.
This is the curse. Write.
 
Ye shall watch while nations strive
With the bloodhounds, die or survive,
Drop faint from their jaws,
Or throttle them backward to death;
And only under your breath
Shall favor the cause.
This is the curse. Write.
 
Ye shall watch while strong men draw
The nets of feudal law
To strangle the weak;
And, counting the sin for a sin,
Your soul shall be sadder within
Than the word ye shall speak.
This is the curse. Write.
 
When good men are praying erect
That Christ may avenge His elect
And deliver the earth,
The prayer in your ears, said low,
Shall sound like the tramp of a foe
That's driving you forth.
This is the curse. Write.
 
When wise men give you their praise,
They shall praise in the heat of the phrase,
As if carried too far.
When ye boast your own charters kept true,
Ye shall blush; for the thing which ye do
Derides what ye are.
This is the curse. Write.
 
When fools cast taunts at your gate,
Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate
As ye look o'er the wall;
For your conscience, tradition, and name
Explode with a deadlier blame
Than the worst of them all.
This is the curse. Write.
 
Go, wherever ill deeds shall be done,
Go, plant your flag in the sun
Beside the ill-doers!
And recoil from clenching the curse
Of God's witnessing Universe
With a curse of yours.
This is the curse. Write. 

 

 

ECONOMY OF SLAVERY By John Pierpoint

 

'One mouth and one back to two hands,' is the law

That the hand of his Maker has stamped upon man;

But Slavery lays on God's image her paw,

And fixes him out on a different plan;-

Two mouths and two backs to two hands she creates;

And the consequence is, as she might have expected;

Let the hands do their best, upon all her estates,

The mouths go half fed, and the backs half protected.

 

 

Abolition Of Slavery In The District Of Columbia, 1862 By John Greenleaf Whittier

When first I saw our banner wave 
Above the nation's council-hall, 
I heard beneath its marble wall 
The clanking fetters of the slave! 
In the foul market-place I stood, 
And saw the Christian mother sold, 
And childhood with its locks of gold, 
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. 
I shut my eyes, I held my breath, 
And, smothering down the wrath and shame 
That set my Northern blood aflame, 
Stood silent, where to speak was death. 
Beside me gloomed the prison-cell 
Where wasted one in slow decline 
For uttering simple words of mine, 
And loving freedom all too well. 
The flag that floated from the dome 
Flapped menace in the morning air; 
I stood a perilled stranger where 
The human broker made his home. 
For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword 
And Law their threefold sanction gave, 
And to the quarry of the slave 
Went hawking with our symbol-bird. 
On the oppressor's side was power; 
And yet I knew that every wrong, 
However old, however strong, 
But waited God's avenging hour. 
I knew that truth would crush the lie, 
Somehow, some time, the end would be; 
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see 
The triumph with my mortal eye. 
But now I see it! In the sun 
A free flag floats from yonder dome, 
And at the nation's hearth and home 
The justice long delayed is done. 
Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, 
The message of deliverance comes, 
But heralded by roll of drums 
On waves of battle-troubled air! 
Midst sounds that madden and appall, 
The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew! 
The harp of David melting through 
The demon-agonies of Saul! 
Not as we hoped; but what are we? 
Above our broken dreams and plans 
God lays, with wiser hand than man's, 
The corner-stones of liberty. 
I cavil not with Him: the voice 
That freedom's blessed gospel tells 
Is sweet to me as silver bells, 
Rejoicing! yea, I will rejoice! 
Dear friends still toiling in the sun; 
Ye dearer ones who, gone before, 
Are watching from the eternal shore 
The slow work by your hands begun, 
Rejoice with me! The chastening rod 
Blossoms with love; the furnace heat 
Grows cool beneath His blessed feet 
Whose form is as the Son of God! 
Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs 
Are sweetened; on our ground of grief 
Rise day by day in strong relief 
The prophecies of better things. 
Rejoice in hope! The day and night 
Are one with God, and one with them 
Who see by faith the cloudy hem 
Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light

 

 

THE SLAVE B Jose Maria de Heredia y Giraud

All wretched, shocking, nude, with vilest fare,
Such slave am I — my body bears the signs —
Born free at foot of gulf whose beauteous lines
See honeyed Hybla his blue summits rear.
 
Alas! I left the happy isle…. Ah! shouldst thou e'er
Toward Syracuse and bees and clustering vines
Follow the swans as winter's cold declines,
Good host, acquaint thee with my loved dear.
 
Shall I see more her dark, pure, violet eye
Reflecting smilingly her natal sky
Beneath that eyebrow's bow where hearts are slain?
 
Have pity! Find my Clearista, pray;
Tell her I live to meet her once again;
Thou'lt surely know her, for she's sad alway.

 

 

THE FALL OF SLAVERY By Marcus Mosiah Garvey

The man who holds a slave and laughs at ease

Is devil with a heart of hardest stone:

The man who also lives with pride to tease

Humanity should oft be left alone.

All men should have the freedom of all rights,

For nature made no sovereign but the soul,

And all should look toward the glorious heights,

To seek the sweet enjoyment of the whole.

When selfish creature, void of love for man,

Inflicts his will upon the helpless weak,

All else should spurn him, as they can,

To force him from the sovereign evil peak.

The thoughtful man who loves his brothers well,

Is king to keep upon an earthly throne;

But slavers all should go right down to Hell,

To sleep upon the stabs of burning stone.

The precious life of man demands a will

To fight to hold the trust of his defence,

Though tyrants would all manly freedom kill,

True knights of love should guard the human fence.

Let's set the human standard high for all,

And see that pompous kings and lords obey,

And when they fail through sin, proclaim their fall,

And hasten in for all the freedman's day.

 

 

SLAVERY By John Bowring

Can a vast interest veil a monstrous curse

And make it like a virtue? can the din

Whose thunders drown the wail of slavery's sin

O'erwhelm the voice-the sanctity divine

That stamps oppression with the Eternal's curse,

And makes the tyrant hateful to the soul?

Foul is the very fact of servitude,

But the vile pleadings that defend it, worse:

Enough to reap the harvest with the shame,

Enough to bear the burthen and the blame,

But to hold up the fetters of the poor

And prostrate slaves as trophies, and to claim

A Gospel heritage, a Christian name,

O this is more than patience can endure!

 

 

THE SLAVERY OF GREECE By George Canning

Unrivall'd Greece! thou ever honor'd name,

Thou nurse of heroes dear to deathless fame!

Though now to worth, to honor all unknown,

Thy lustre faded, and thy glories flown;

Yet still shall Memory, with reverted eye,

Trace thy past worth, and view thee with a sigh.

Thee Freedom cherish'd once with fostering hand,

And breath'd undaunted valour through the land;

Here, the stern spirit of the Spartan soil,

The child of poverty, inur'd to toil.

Here, lov'd by Pallas and the sacred Nine,

Once did fair Athens' tow'ring glories shine,

To bend the bow, or the bright faulchion wield,

To lift the bulwark of the brazen shield,

To toss the terror of the whizzing spear,

The conqu'ring standard's glitt'ring glories rear,

And join the mad'ning battle's loud career.

How skill'd the Greeks; confess what Persians slain

Were strew'd on Marathon's ensanguin'd plain;

When heaps on heaps the routed squadron fell,

And with their gaudy myriads peopled hell.

What millions bold Leonidas withstood,

And seal'd the Grecian freedom with his blood;

Witness Thermopylæ! how fierce he trod!

How spoke a hero, and how mov'd a God!

The rush of nations could alone sustain,

While half the ravag'd globe was arm'd in vain.

Let Leuctra say, let Mantinea tell,

How great Epaminondas fought and fell!

Nor war's vast art alone adorn'd thy fame,

"But mild philosophy endear'd thy name."

Who knows not, sees not with admiring eye,

How Plato thought, how Socrates could die?

To bend the arch to bid the column rise,

And the tall pile aspiring pierce the skies;

The awful scene magnificently great,

With pictur'd pomp to grace, and sculptur'd state,

This science taught; on Greece each science shone:

Here the bold statue started from the stone;

Here, warm with life, the swelling canvass glow'd;

Here, big with life, the poet's raptures flow'd;

Here Homer's lip was touch'd with sacred fire,

And wanton Sappho tun'd her am'rous lyre;

Here bold Tyrtæus rous'd th' enervate throng

Awak'd to glory by th' inspiring song;

Here Pindar soar'd a nobler, loftier way,

And brave Alcæus, scorn'd a tyrant's sway;

Here gorgeous Tragedy, with great controul,

Touch'd every feeling of th' impassion'd soul;

While in soft measure tripping to the song,

Her comic sister lightly danc'd along
This was thy state!

But oh! how chang'd thy fame,

And all thy glories fading into shame.

What! that thy bold, thy freedom-breathing land,

Should crouch beneath a tyrant's stern command;

That servitude should bind in galling chain;

Whom Asia's millions once oppos'd in vain,

Who could have thought?

Who sees without a groan,

Thy cities mould'ring and thy walls o'erthrown?

That where once tower'd the stately solemn fane,

Now moss-grown ruins strew the ravag'd plain;

And unobserv'd but by the traveller's eye

Proud vaulted domes in fretted fragments lie;

And thy fall'n column on the dusty ground,

Pale ivy throws its sluggish arms around.

Thy sons (sad change!) in abject bondage sigh;

Unpitied toil, and unlamented die;

Groan at the labours of the galling oar,
Or the dark caverns of the mine explore.
The glitt'ring tyranny of Othman's sons,

The pomp of horror which surrounds their thrones

Has aw'd their servile spirits into fear;

Spurn'd by the foot, they tremble and revere.

The day of labour, night's sad sleepless hour,

Th' inflictive scourge of arbitrary pow'r,

The bloody terror of the pointed steel,

The murd'rous stake, the agonizing wheel,

And (dreadful choice!) the bow-string or the bowl,

Damps their faint vigour, and unmans the soul.

Disastrous fate! still tears will fill the eye,

Still recollection prompt the mournful sigh,

When to thy mind recurs thy former fame,

And all the horrors of thy present shame.

So some tall rock, whose bare broad bosom high,

Tow'rs from th' earth, and braves th' inclement sky;

On whose vast top the blackening deluge pours,

At whose wide base the thund'ring ocean roars;

In conscious pride its huge gigantic form

Surveys imperious, and defies the storm.

Till worn by age and mould'ring to decay,

Th' insidious waters wash its base away;

It falls, and falling cleaves the trembling ground,

And spreads a tempest of destruction round

 

 

SLAVERY TO THE SLAVE By Timothy Thomas Fortune

On the hills of Hayti ring

Mandates of the Frenchman's king,

And the waves the tidings bring—

"Slavery to the slave!"

 

Toussaint, arm thee for the fight!

Strike a blow for human right!

Crush, O crush! the tyrant's might,

And thy country save!

 

Stay thy arm when every foe

From thy land in haste shall go,

Sick at heart beneath the blow

On the battlefield!

 

Long may Hayti's banners wave!

O'er her valiant few, so brave!

Heroes worthy patriots' grave,

Who would never yield!

 

 

POEMS ON THE SLAVE TRADE – Sonnet I By Robert Southey

Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain

Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?

For ever must your Nigers tainted flood

Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?

Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear

The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore

Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,

With laurels water'd by the widow's tear

Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!

And like the desolating whirlwinds sweep,

Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;

For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there

Breathes his gold-gender'd pestilence afar,

And calls to share the prey his kindred Daemon War.

 

 

POEMS ON THE SLAVE TRADE – Sonnet II By Robert Southey

Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,

And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries?

Before the gale the laden vessel flies;

The Heavens all-favoring smile, the breeze is fair;

Hark to the clamors of the exulting crew!

Hark how their thunders mock the patient skies!

Why dost thou shriek and strain thy red-swoln eyes

As the white sail dim lessens from thy view?

Go pine in want and anguish and despair,

There is no mercy found in human-kind

Go Widow to thy grave and rest thee there!

But may the God of Justice bid the wind

Whelm that curst bark beneath the mountain wave,

And bless with Liberty and Death the Slave!

 

 

POEMS ON THE SLAVE TRADE – Sonnet III By Robert Southey

Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run

Down his dark cheek; hold, hold thy merciless hand,

Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command

O'erwearied Nature sinks. The scorching Sun,

As pityless as proud Prosperity,

Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies

Arraigning with his looks the patient skies,

While that inhuman trader lifts on high

The mangling scourge. Oh ye who at your ease

Sip the blood-sweeten'd beverage! thoughts like these

Haply ye scorn: I thank thee Gracious God!

That I do feel upon my cheek the glow

Of indignation, when beneath the rod

A sable brother writhes in silent woe.

 

 

POEMS ON THE SLAVE TRADE – Sonnet IV By Robert Southey

'Tis night; the mercenary tyrants sleep

As undisturb'd as Justice! but no more

The wretched Slave, as on his native shore,

Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep!

Tho' thro' the toil and anguish of the day

No tear escap'd him, not one suffering groan

Beneath the twisted thong, he weeps alone

In bitterness; thinking that far away

Tho' the gay negroes join the midnight song,

Tho' merriment resounds on Niger's shore,

She whom he loves far from the chearful throng

Stands sad, and gazes from her lowly door

With dim grown eye, silent and woe-begone,

And weeps for him who will return no more.

 

 

POEMS ON THE SLAVE TRADE – Sonnet V By Robert Southey

Did then the bold Slave rear at last the Sword

Of Vengeance? drench'd he deep its thirsty blade

In the cold bosom of his tyrant lord?

Oh! who shall blame him? thro' the midnight shade

Still o'er his tortur'd memory rush'd the thought

Of every past delight; his native grove,

Friendship's best joys, and Liberty and Love,

All lost for ever! then Remembrance wrought

His soul to madness; round his restless bed

Freedom's pale spectre stalk'd, with a stern smile

Pointing the wounds of slavery, the while

She shook her chains and hung her sullen head:

No more on Heaven he calls with fruitless breath,

But sweetens with revenge, the draught of death.

 

 

POEMS ON THE SLAVE TRADE – Sonnet VI By Robert Southey

High in the air expos'd the Slave is hung

To all the birds of Heaven, their living food!

He groans not, tho' awaked by that fierce Sun

New torturers live to drink their parent blood!

He groans not, tho' the gorging Vulture tear

The quivering fibre! hither gaze O ye

Who tore this Man from Peace and Liberty!

Gaze hither ye who weigh with scrupulous care

The right and prudent; for beyond the grave

There is another world! and call to mind,

Ere your decrees proclaim to all mankind

Murder is legalized, that there the Slave

Before the Eternal, "thunder-tongued shall plead

"Against the deep damnation of your deed."

 

 

THE HUNTERS OF MEN By John Greenleaf Whittier

Have ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen,

Through cane-brake and forest, — the hunting of men?

The lords of our land to this hunting have gone,

As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn;

Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip,

And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip!

All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match,

Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch.

So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen,

Through cane-brake and forest, — the hunting of men!

Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride

In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride!

The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind,

Just screening the politic statesman behind;

The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer,

The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there.

And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid,

For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid:

Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on the rein,

How blithely she rides to the hunting of men!

Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see,

In this 'land of the brave and this home of the free.'

Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to Maine,

All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein;

Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin

Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin!

Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay!

Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey?

Will their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when

All roughly they ride to the hunting of men?

Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint,

Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the saint.

The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still,

Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill.

Haste, alms for our hunters! the hunted once more

Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore:

What right have they here in the home of the white,

Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right?

Ho! alms for the hunters! or never again

Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men!

Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay,

When their pride and their glory are melting away?

The parson has turned; for, on charge of his own,

Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone?

The politic statesman looks back with a sigh,

There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye.

Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail,

And the head of his steed take the place of the tail.

Oh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then,

For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men?

 

 

THE SLAVE MOTHER By Frances Ellen Watkins

Heard you that shriek? It rose

So wildly on the air,

It seemed as if a burden'd heart

Was breaking in despair.

Saw you those hands so sadly clasped

The bowed and feeble hand

The shuddering of that fragile form

That look of grief and dread?

Saw you the sad, imploring eye?

Its every glance was pain,

As if a storm of agony

Were sweeping through the brain.

She is a mother, pale with fear,

Her boy clings to her side,

And in her kirtle vainly tries

His trembling form to hide.

He is not hers, although she bore

For him a mother's pains;

He is not hers, although her blood

Is coursing through his veins!

He is not hers, for cruel hands

May rudely tear apart

The only wreath of household love

That binds her breaking heart.

His love has been a joyous light

That o'er her pathway smiled,

A fountain gushing ever new,

Amid life's desert wild.

His lightest word has been a tone

Of music round her heart,

Their lives a streamlet blent in one -

Oh, Father! must they part?

They tear him from her circling arms,

Her last and fond embrace.

Oh! never more may her sad eyes

Gaze on his mournful face.

No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks

Disturb the listening air;

She is a mother, and her heart

Is breaking in despair.

 

 

THE DYING SLAVE By William Lisle Bowles

Faint-gazing on the burning orb of day,

When Afric's injured son expiring lay,

His forehead cold, his labouring bosom bare,

His dewy temples, and his sable hair,

His poor companions kissed, and cried aloud,

Rejoicing, whilst his head in peace he bowed:

Now thy long, long task is done,

Swiftly, brother, wilt thou run,

Ere to-morrow's golden beam

Glitter on thy parent stream,

Swiftly the delights to share,

The feast of joy that waits thee there.

Swiftly, brother, wilt thou ride

O'er the long and stormy tide,

Fleeter than the hurricane,

Till thou see'st those scenes again,

Where thy father's hut was reared,

Where thy mother's voice was heard;

Where thy infant brothers played

Beneath the fragrant citron shade;

Where through green savannahs wide

Cooling rivers silent glide,

Or the shrill cicalas sing

Ceaseless to their murmuring;

Where the dance, the festive song,

Of many a friend divided long,

Doomed through stranger lands to roam,

Shall bid thy spirit welcome home!

Fearless o'er the foaming tide

Again thy light canoe shall ride;

Fearless on the embattled plain

Thou shalt lift thy lance again;

Or, starting at the call of morn,

Wake the wild woods with thy horn;

Or, rushing down the mountain-slope,

O'ertake the nimble antelope;

Or lead the dance, 'mid blissful bands,

On cool Andracte's yellow sands;

Or, in the embowering orange-grove,

Tell to thy long-forsaken love

The wounds, the agony severe,

Thy patient spirit suffered here!

Fear not now the tyrant's power,

Past is his insulting hour;

Mark no more the sullen trait

On slavery's brow of scorn and hate;

Hear no more the long sigh borne

Murmuring on the gales of morn!

Go in peace; yet we remain

Far distant toiling on in pain;

Ere the great Sun fire the skies

To our work of woe we rise;

And see each night, without a friend,

The world's great comforter descend!

Tell our brethren, where ye meet,

Thus we toil with weary feet;

Yet tell them that Love's generous flame,

In joy, in wretchedness the same,

In distant worlds was ne'er forgot;

And tell them that we murmur not;

Tell them, though the pang will start,

And drain the life-blood from the heart,

Tell them, generous shame forbids

The tear to stain our burning lids!

Tell them, in weariness and want,

For our native hills we pant,

Where soon, from shame and sorrow free,

We hope in death to follow thee!

 

 

THE SLAVE By Robert Anderson

Torn from every dear connection,

Forc'd across the yielding wave,

The Negro, stung by keen reflection,

May exclaim, Man's but a Slave!

In youth, gay Hope delusive fools him,

Proud her vot'ry to deprave;

In age, self-interest over-rules him

Still he bends a willing Slave.

The haughty monarch, fearing Reason

May her sons from ruin save,

Of traitors dreaming, plots and treason,

Reigns at best a sceptr'd Slave.

His minion, Honesty would barter,

And become Corruption's knave;

Won by ribband, star, or garter,

Proves himself Ambition's Slave.

Yon Patriot boasts a pure intention,

And of rights will loudly rave,

Till silenc'd by a place or pension,

Th'apostate sits a courtly Slave.

In pulpit perch'd, the pious preacher

Talks of conscience wond'rous grave;

Yet not content, the tithe, paid teacher

Pants to loll a mitr'd Slave.

The soldier, lur'd by sounds of glory,

Longs to shine a hero brave;

And, proud to live in future story,

Yields his life to Fame a Slave.

Mark yon poor miser o'er his treasure,

Who to Want a mite ne'er gave;

He, shut out from peace and pleasure,

Starves, to Avarice a Slave.

The lover to his mistress bending,

Pants, nor dares her hand to crave;

Vainly sighing, time misspending

Wisdom scorns the fetter'd Slave.

Thus dup'd by Fancy, Pride, or Folly,

Ne'er content with what we have;

Toss'd 'twixt Hope and Melancholy,

Death at last sets free the Slave.

 

 

THE SLAVE AUCTION by EW Harper

The sale began—young girls were there,

Defenseless in their wretchedness,

Whose stifled sobs of deep despair

Revealed their anguish and distress.

 

And mothers stood, with streaming eyes,

And saw their dearest children sold;

Unheeded rose their bitter cries,

While tyrants bartered them for gold.

 

And woman, with her love and truth

For these in sable forms may dwell

Gazed on the husband of her youth,

With anguish none may paint or tell.

 

And men, whose sole crime was their hue,

The impress of their Maker’s hand,

And frail and shrinking children too,

Were gathered in that mournful band.

 

Ye who have laid your loved to rest,

And wept above their lifeless clay,

Know not the anguish of that breast,

Whose loved are rudely torn away.

 

Ye may not know how desolate

Are bosoms rudely forced to part,

And how a dull and heavy weight

Will press the life-drops from the heart.

 

 

THE SLAVE MOTHER by EW Harper

Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seemed as if a burden'd heart
Was breaking in despair.
 
Saw you those hands so sadly clasped
The bowed and feeble head
The shuddering of that fragile form
That look of grief and dread?
 
Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.
 
She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kirtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide.
 
He is not hers, although she bore
For him a mother's pains; 
He is not hers, although her blood
Is coursing through his veins!
 
He is not hers, for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart
The only wreath of household love
That binds her breaking heart.
 
His love has been a joyous light
That o'er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life's desert wild.
 
His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart, 
Their lives a streamlet blent in one
Oh, Father! must they part?
 
They tear him from her circling arms,
Her last and fond embrace.
Oh! never more may her sad eyes
Gaze on his mournful face.
 
No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks
Disturb the listening air:
She is a mother, and her heart
Is breaking in despair. 

 

 

THE SLAVE TRADE, A POEM By Hannah More

If heaven has into being deign'd to call
Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy penetrating essence to opose;
No obstacles by Nature's hand imprest,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Nor motion's laws can speed thy active course,
Nor strong repulsion's pow'rs obstruct thy force; 
Since there is no convexity in Mind,
Why are thy genial beams to parts confin'd?
While the chill North with thy bright ray is blest,
Why should fell darkness half the South invest?
Was it decreed, fair Freedom! at thy birth, 
That thou shou'd'st ne'er irradiate all the earth?
While Britain basks in thy full blaze of light,
Why lies sad Afric quench'd in total night?
Thee only, sober Goddess! I attest,
In smiles chastis'd, and decent graces drest. 
Not that unlicens'd monster of the crowd,
Whose roar terrific bursts in peals so loud,
Deaf'ning the ear of Peace: fierce Faction's tool;
Of rash Sedition born, and mad Misrule;
Whose stubborn mouth, rejecting Reason's rein, 
No strength can govern, and no skill restrain;
Whose magic cries the frantic vulgar draw
To spurn at Order, and to outrage Law;
To tread on grave Authority and Pow'r,
And shake the work of ages in an hour: 
Convuls'd her voice, and pestilent her breath,
She raves of mercy, while she deals out death:
Each blast is fate; she darts from either hand
Red conflagration o'er th' astonish'd land;
Clamouring for peace, she rends the air with noise, 
And to reform a part, the whole destroys.
O, plaintive Southerne! whose impassion'd strain
So oft has wak'd my languid Muse in vain!
Now, when congenial themes her cares engage,
She burns to emulate thy glowing page; 
Her failing efforts mock her fond desires,
She shares thy feelings, not partakes thy fires.
Strange pow'r of song! the strain that warms the heart
Seems the same inspiration to impart;
Touch'd by the kindling energy alone, 
We think the flame which melts us is our own;
Deceiv'd, for genius we mistake delight,
Charm'd as we read, we fancy we can write.
Tho' not to me, sweet Bard, thy pow'rs belong
Fair Truth, a hallow'd guide! inspires my song. 
Here Art wou'd weave her gayest flow'rs in vain,
For Truth the bright invention wou'd disdain.
For no fictitious ills these numbers flow,
But living anguish, and substantial woe;
No individual griefs my bosom melt, 
For millions feel what Oronoko felt:
Fir'd by no single wrongs, the countless host
I mourn, by rapine dragg'd from Afric's coast.
Perish th'illiberal thought which wou'd debase
The native genius of the sable race! 
Perish the proud philosophy, which sought
To rob them of the pow'rs of equal thought!
Does then th' immortal principle within
Change with the casual colour of a skin?
Does matter govern spirit? or is mind 
Degraded by the form to which 'tis join'd?
No: they have heads to think, and hearts to feel,
And souls to act, with firm, tho' erring, zeal;
For they have keen affections, kind desires,
Love strong as death, and active patriot fires; 
All the rude energy, the fervid flame,
Of high-soul'd passion, and ingenuous shame:
Strong, but luxuriant virtues boldly shoot
From the wild vigour of a savage root.
Nor weak their sense of honour's proud control, 
For pride is virtue in a Pagan soul;
A sense of worth, a conscience of desert,
A high, unbroken haughtiness of heart:
That self-same stuff which erst proud empires sway'd,
Of which the conquerers of the world were made.
Capricious fate of man! that very pride
In Afric scourg'd, in Rome was deify'd.
No Muse, O Quashi! shall thy deeds relate,
No statue snatch thee from oblivious fate!
For thou wast born where never gentle Muse
On Valour's grave the flow'rs of Genius strews;
And thou wast born where no recording page
Plucks the fair deed from Time's devouring rage.
Had Fortune plac'd thee on some happier coast,
Where polish'd souls heroic virtue boast,
To thee, who sought'st a voluntary grave,
Th' uninjur'd honours of thy name to save,
Whose generous arm thy barbarous Master spar'd,
Altars had smok'd, and temples had been rear'd.
Whene'er to Afric's shores I turn my eyes,
Horrors of deepest, deadliest guilt arise;
I see, by more than Fancy's mirrow shewn,
The burning village, and the blazing town:
See the dire victim torn from social life,
The shrieking babe, the agonizing wife!
She, wretch forlorn! is dragg'd by hostile hands,
To distant tyrants sold, in distant lands!
Transmitted miseries, and successive chains,
The sole sad heritage her child obtains!
Ev'n this last wretched boon their foes deny, 
To weep together, or together die.
By felon hands, by one relentless stroke,
See the fond links of feeling nature broke!
The fibres twisting round a parent's heart,
Torn from their grasp, and bleeding as they part. 
Hold, murderers, hold! not aggravate distress;
Respect the passions you yourselves possess;
Ev'n you, of ruffian heart, and ruthless hand,
Love your own offspring, love your native land.
Ah! leave them holy Freedom's cheering smile, 
The heav'n-taught fondness for the parent soil;
Revere affections mingled with our frame,
In every nature, every clime the same;
In all, these feelings equal sway maintain;
In all the love of Home and Freedom reign: 
And Tempe's vale, and parch'd Angola's sand,
One equal fondness of their sons command.
Th' unconquer'd Savage laughs at pain and toil,
Basking in Freedom's beams which gild his native soil.
Does thirst of empire, does desire of fame, 
(For these are specious crimes) our rage inflame?
No: sordid lust of gold their fate controls,
The basest appetite of basest souls;
Gold, better gain'd, by what their ripening sky,
Their fertile fields, their arts and mines supply. 
What wrongs, what injuries does Opression plead
To smooth the horror of th' unnatural deed?
What strange offence, what aggravated sin?
They stand convicted-of a darker skin!
Barbarians, hold! th' opprobious commerce spare, 
Respect his sacred image which they bear:
Tho' dark and savage, ignorant and blind,
They claim the common privilege of kind;
Let Malice strip them of each other plea,
They still are men, and men shou'd still be free. 
Insulted Reason, loaths th' inverted trade -
Dire change! the agent is the purchase made!
Perplex'd, the baffled Muse involves the tale;
Nature confounded, well may language fail!
The outrag'd Goddess with abhorrent eyes 
Sees Man the traffic, Souls the merchandize!
Plead not, in reason's palpable abuse,
Their sense of feeling callous and obtuse:
From heads to hearts lies Nature's plain appeal,
Tho' few can reason, all mankind can feel. 
Tho' wit may boast a livelier dread of shame,
A loftier sense of wrong refinement claim;
Tho' polished manners may fresh wants invent,
And nice distinctions nicer souls torment;
Tho' these on finer spirits heavier fall, 
Yet natural evils are the same to all.
 
Tho' wounds there are which reason's force may heal,
There needs no logic sure to make us feel.
The nerve, howe'er untutor'd, can sustain
A sharp, unutterable sense of pain;
As exquisitely fashion'd in a slave,
As where unequal fate a sceptre gave.
Sense is as keen where Congo's sons preside,
As where proud Tiber rolls his classic tide.
Rhetoric or verse may point the feeling line, 
They do not whet sensation, but define.
Did ever slave less feel the galling chain,
When Zeno prov'd there was no ill in pain?
Their miseries philosophic quirks deride,
Slaves groan in pangs disown'd by Stoic pride. 
When the fierce Sun darts vertical his beams,
And thirst and hunger mix their wild extremes;
When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul,
And his strain'd eyes in burning anguish roll;
Will the parch'd negro find, ere he expire, 
No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire?
For him, when fate his tortur'd frame destroys,
What hope of present fame, or future joys?
For this, have heroes shorten'd nature's date;
For that, have martyrs gladly met their fate; 
But him, forlorn, no hero's pride sustains,
No martyr's blissful visions sooth his pains;
Sullen, he mingles with his kindred dust,
For he has learn'd to dread the Christian's trust;
To him what mercy can that Pow'r display,
Whose servants murder, and whose sons betray?
Savage! thy venial error I deplore,
They are not Christians who infest thy shore.
O thou sad spirit, whose preposterous yoke
The great deliver Death, at length, has broke!
Releas'd from misery, and escap'd from care,
Go meet that mercy man deny'd thee here.
In thy dark home, sure refuge of th' opress'd,
The wicked vex not, and the weary rest.
And, if some notions, vague and undefin'd,
Of future terrors have assail'd thy mind;
If such thy masters have presum'd to teach,
As terrors only they are prone to preach;
(For shou'd they paint eternal Mercy's reign,
Where were th' oppressor's rod, the captive's chain?)
If, then, thy troubled soul has learn'd to dread
The dark unknown thy trembling footsteps tread;
On Him, who made thee what thou art, depend;
He, who withholds the means, accepts the end.
Not thine the reckoning dire of Light abus'd,
Knowledge disgrac'd, and Liberty misus'd;
On thee no awful judge incens'd shall sit
For parts perverted, and dishonour'd wit.
Where ignorance will be found the surest plea,
How many learn'd and wise shall envy thee!

And thou, White Savage! whether lust of gold,
Or lust of conquest, rule thee uncontrol'd!
Hero, or robber!-by whatever name
Thou plead thy impious claim to wealth or fame;
Whether inferior mischiefs be thy boast, 
A petty tyrant rifling Gambia's coast:
Or bolder carnage track thy crimson way,
Kings disposses'd, and Provinces thy prey;
Panting to tame wide earth's remotest bound;
All Cortez murder'd, all Columbus found; 
O'er plunder'd realms to reign, detested Lord,
Make millions wretched, and thyself abhorr'd; -
In Reason's eye, in Wisdom's fair account,
Your sum of glory boasts a like amount;
The means may differ, but the end's the same; 
Conquest is pillage with a nobler name.
Who makes the sum of human blessings less,
Or sinks the stock of general happiness,
No solid fame shall grace, no true renown,
His life shall blazon, or his memory crown. 
Had those advent'rous spirits who explore
Thro' ocean's trackless wastes, the far-sought shore;
Whether of wealth insatiate, or of pow'r,
Conquerors who waste, or ruffians who devour:
Had these possess'd, O Cook! thy gentle mind,
Thy love of arts, thy love of humankind;
Had these pursued thy mild and liberal plan,
Discovers had not been a curse to man!
The, bless'd Philanthropy! thy social hands
Had link'd dissever'd worlds in brothers bands; 
Careless, if colour, or if clime divide;
Then, lov'd, and loving, man had liv'd, and died.
The purest wreaths which hang on glory's shrine,
For empires founded, peaceful Penn! are thine;
No blood-stain'd laurels crown'd thy virtuous toil, 
No slaughter'd natives drench'd thy fair-earn'd soil.
Still thy meek spirit in thy flock survives,
Consistent still, their doctrines rule their lives;
Thy followers only have effac'd the shame
Inscrib'd by Slavery on the Christian name. 
Shall Britain, where the soul of freedom reigns,
Forge chains for others she herself disdains?
Forbid it, Heaven! O let the nations know
The liberty she loves she will bestow;
Not to herself the glorious gift confin'd, 
She spreads the blessing wide as humankind;
And, scorning narrow views of time and place,
Bids all be free in earth's extended space.
What page of human annals can record
A deed so bright as human rights restor'd? 
O may that god-like deed, that shining page,
Redeem Our fame, and consecrate Our age!
And see, the cherub Mercy from above,
Descending softly, quits the sphere of love!
On feeling hearts she sheds celestial dew,
And breathes her spirit o'er th' enlighten'd few;
From soul to soul the spreading influence steals,
Till every breast the soft contagion feels.
She bears, exulting, to the burning shore
The loveliest office Angel ever bore;
To vindicate the pow'r in Heaven ador'd,
To still the clank of chains, and sheathe the sword;
To cheer the mourner, and with soothing hands
From bursting hearts unbind th' Oppressor's bands;
To raise the lustre of the Christian name,
And clear the foulest blot that dims its fame.
As the mild Spirit hovers o'er the coast,
A fresher hue the wither'd landscapes boast;
Her healing smiles the ruin'd scenes repair,
And blasted Nature wears a joyous air.
She spreads her blest commission from above,
Stamp'd with the sacred characters of love;
She tears the banner stain'd with blood and tears,
And, Liberty! thy shining standard rears!
As the bright ensign's glory she displays,
See pale Oppression faints beneath the blaze!
The giant dies! no more his frown appals,
The chain untouch'd, drops off; the fetter falls.
Astonish'd echo tells the vocal shore,
Opression's fall'n, and Slavery is no more!
The dusky myriads crowd the sultry plain,
And hail that mercy long invok'd in vain.
Victorious Pow'r! she bursts their tow-fold bands,
And Faith and Freedom spring from Mercy's hands. 

 

 

A CREOLE SLAVE-SONG (Ah, lo zo-zo chan' dan' branche) by Maurice Thompson

What bird is that, with voice so sweet,

Sings to the sun from yonder tree?

What girl is that so slim and fleet,

Comes through the cane her love to meet?

Foli zo-zo, sing merrily.

The pretty girl she comes to me!

 

What wind is that upon the cane?

What perfume from a far-off rose

Fills me with dreams? What strange, vague pain

Stirs in my heart? What longing vain

Is this that through my bosom goes?

O south wind, perfume and desire,

You kiss, you soothe, you burn like fire!

 

Ah, no! Ah, no! It is a cheat.

There is no bird; my love comes not;

The wind chills me from head to feet,

And oh, it brings no perfume sweet.

My slender girl the white man bought,

And took her far across the bay

I cannot cut the cane to-day!

 

I cannot cut the cane to-day

O zo-zo, moquer, come and sing!

O warm wind, through the cane-field stray,

Wave the long moss so soft and gray!

I have no heart for anything;

But life was heaven and work was play

When my love loved me every day!

 

White man, how I worked for you

When I was young and blithe and strong!

The earth was green, the sky was blue,

My love’s eyes were as bright as dew;

And life was like the zo-zo’s song!

But you—you sold my love away

I cannot cut the cane to-day!

 

I did not dream a slave could be

A man, and right a grievous wrong.

I writhed and bore your cruelty;

I felt the soul go out of me;

And yet, I was so lion-strong

I could have torn your heart away

I cannot cut the cane to-day!

 

Freedom! I feel it when too late,

Like spring wind on a blasted tree,

A waft of mockery and hate!

Bring back my chains, O cruel Fate!

Bring youth and slavery back to me;

Bring back the lash, the hound, the pain,

So that my own love come again!

 

But hark! A gentle voice afar

Calls me to go, I know not where

Yes, past the sun and past the star,

Into God’s land. A golden car

And milk-white horses—she is there!

So sweet—I dream—I float away

I cannot cut the cane to-day!

 

 

THE SLAVE’S LAMENT By Benjamin Cutler Clark

Can it be so? Has God intended 
Me to be another's slave? 
To toil in anguish, undefended, 
From the cradle to the grave; 
Yes, and bow my head in sorrow, 
Lest I live to see the morrow? 
 
If so, why am I not contented 
To endure this hateful chain? 
Why have I constantly invented 
Schemes my liberty to gain; 
And with firm, heroic brav'ry, 
Ventur'd my life to flee from slav'ry? 
 
No! God, in truth, condemns a system 
That is wretched, vile, and base; 
And e'en all nature bids the victim 
Of it 'fly from its embrace!' 
Now, I bid adieu to slav'ry
Its woes, its wrongs, its cunning knav'ry.

 

 

THE SLAVE CATCHER BY Benjamin Cutler Clark

Hark! the cry,

'A slave ran by!'

Quick, pursue the track;

Don't delay

He'll get away

Ere we get him back.

I regard

The large reward

By the master giv'n;

And I go

Through rain and snow,

As by it I'm driv'n.

I am, sir,

The master's cur,

As I'm known to scout

Through the fen,

The bog, and glen,

When a slave is out.

Hark! the cry,

'A slave's gone by!'

Quick, pursue the track;

Don't delay—

He'll get away

Ere we get him back!

 

 

NEGRO SLAVE By Charles Dibdin

Hark! the cry,

'A slave ran by!'

Quick, pursue the track;

Don't delay

He'll get away

Ere we get him back.

I regard

The large reward

By the master giv'n;

And I go

Through rain and snow,

As by it I'm driv'n.

I am, sir,

The master's cur,

As I'm known to scout

Through the fen,

The bog, and glen,

When a slave is out.

Hark! the cry,

'A slave's gone by!'

Quick, pursue the track;

Don't delay

He'll get away

Ere we get him back!

 

 

THE SLAVE HOLDER’S APOLOGY By Benjamin Cutler Clark

These slaves I now possess are mine,

Sanction'd by laws of earth and Heaven.

We thank Thee, gracious power divine,

That unto us this boon is given.

In Scripture thou hast bidden us make

Slaves of the heathen and the stranger;

And if we heathen people take,

There is no harm, and much less danger.

Slav'ry's a system that's ordain'd

On earth to be, and to us given;

This can be read in language plain,

And thus we thank Thee, Lord in heaven,

That, in Thy wisdom, Thou mad'st us

The instruments to show Thy power,

And thus fulfil on them the curse

Of 'Cain,' nay 'Ham,' until this hour!

What care we for the Northern fool,

Who talks about the rights of niggers?

We know that we were made to rule,

And they ordain'd to be the diggers.

Besides, it can be seen at sight,

Our slaves, if freed, would turn out lazy;

And if the 'fanatics' are right,

The Scriptures' wrong, or we are crazy.

It says, old Abraham held slaves,

And Paul sent back Onesimus:

Those patr'archs would spring from their graves

To hear the prate of Abolition'sts!

They say, 'Great Britain has set free

Some few of her poor, lazy creatures!'

But if they'd just reflect, they'd see

They've missed the mark by many figures.

For who will cultivate the soil,

Or plant their sugar-cane and cotton?

Their niggers now are freed from toil,

And soon their ills will be forgotten.

Then hold on, brethren of the South

They tell me Abolition 's dying:

This cry 's in almost ev'ry mouth,

Unless you think the rascal 's lying.

Whether or not, this corner-stone

Of our Republic shall not crumble;

Our laws and 'niggers' are our own,

So let the poor 'fanatics' grumble!

 

 

WHAT IS A SLAVE By Benjamin Cutler Clark

A slave is—what?

A thing that's got

Nothing, and that alone!

His time—his wife—

And e'en his life,

He dare not call his own.

A slave is—what?

Ah! dreadful lot

Is his that's doomed to toil,

Without regard,

Or just reward,

Upon another's soil.

A slave is—what?

Ah! cruel thought,

That I should have to be,

In constant strife,

Throughout my life,

Deprived of liberty.

A slave is—what?

A perfect naught,

Shorn of his legal right;

And then compelled

To work, he's held,

The remnant of his life.

A slave is—what?

A being bought,

Or stolen from himself,

By Christians, who

This trade pursue,

For sordid, paltry pelf.

A slave is—what?

A being sought

Throughout this wide domain;

Through bog and glen,

By dogs and men,

For lucre—cursed gain!

A slave is—what?

I pray do not

Insist; I cannot know,

Nor words impart,

Or, painter's art,

Describe a slave—ah, no!

A slave is—what?

Tell I can not,

The task I would not crave:

If you would know,

Then straightway go,

And be yourself a slave!

 

 

THE DEATH OF A SLAVE By Thomas Hill

In a low and ill-thatched hut,

Stretched on a floor of clay,

With scanty clothing round her wrapped,

The dying woman lay.

No husband’s kindly hand,

No loving child was near,

To offer her their aid, or shed

A sympathizing tear.

For now the ripened cane 39

Was read for the knife,

And not a slave could be spared to aid

His mother or his wife.

She is struggling now with Death,

Deep was that dying groan,

For a corpse now lies on the cold clay floor,

The soul, set free, has flown.

The planter, walking by,

Chanced at the door to stop,

And he cursed his luck, 'there was one hand less

To gather in the crop.'

O, Jesus! hast thou said:

'The poor your care shall be,

Who visit not the poor and sick,

They do it not to me'?

 

 

THE GRAVE OF THE SLAVE By Sarah Louisa Forten

In a low and ill-thatched hut,

Stretched on a floor of clay,

With scanty clothing round her wrapped,

The dying woman lay.

No husband’s kindly hand,

No loving child was near,

To offer her their aid, or shed

A sympathizing tear.

For now the ripened cane

Was read for the knife,

And not a slave could be spared to aid

His mother or his wife.

She is struggling now with Death,

Deep was that dying groan,

For a corpse now lies on the cold clay floor,

The soul, set free, has flown.

The planter, walking by,

Chanced at the door to stop,

And he cursed his luck, 'there was one hand less

To gather in the crop.'

O, Jesus! hast thou said:

'The poor your care shall be,

Who visit not the poor and sick,

They do it not to me'?

 

 

THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM’S POINT by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I bend my knee down on this mark... 
I look on the sky and the sea.

 

II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come out proud and slow
From the land of the spirits pale as dew….
And round me and round me ye go!
O pilgrims, I have gasped and run
All night long from the whips of one
Who in your names works sin and woe.

 

III.
And thus I thought that I would come
And kneel here where I knelt before,
And feel your souls around me hum
In undertone to the ocean's roar;
And lift my black face, my black hand,
Here, in your names, to curse this land
Ye blessed in freedom's evermore.

 

IV.
I am black, I am black;
And yet God made me, they say.
But if He did so, smiling back
He must have cast His work away
Under the feet of His white creatures,
With a look of scorn, that the dusky features
Might be trodden again to clay.

 

V.
And yet He has made dark things
To be glad and merry as light.
There's a little dark bird sits and sings;
There's a dark stream ripples out of sight;
And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass,
And the sweetest stars are made to pass
O'er the face of the darkest night.

 

VI.
But we who are dark, we are dark!
Ah, God, we have no stars!
About our souls in care and cark
Our blackness shuts like prison bars:
The poor souls crouch so far behind,
That never a comfort can they find
By reaching through the prison-bars.

 

VII.
Indeed, we live beneath the sky,... 
That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out
On all His children fatherly,
To bless them from the fear and doubt,
Which would be, if, from this low place,
All opened straight up to His face
Into the grand eternity.

 

VIII.
And still God's sunshine and His frost,
They make us hot, they make us cold,
As if we were not black and lost:
And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold,
Do fear and take us for very men!
Could the weep-poor-will or the cat of the glen
Look into my eyes and be bold?

 

IX.
I am black, I am black!
But, once, I laughed in girlish glee;
For one of my colour stood in the track
Where the drivers drove, and looked at me
And tender and full was the look he gave:
Could a slave look so at another slave?
I look at the sky and the sea.

 

X.
And from that hour our spirits grew
As free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were two
To conquer the world, we thought!
The drivers drove us day by day;
We did not mind, we went one way,
 

And no better a liberty sought.

XI.
In the sunny ground between the canes,
He said "I love you" as he passed:
When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,
I heard how he vowed it fast:
While others shook, he smiled in the hut
As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut,
Through the roar of the hurricanes.

 

XII.
I sang his name instead of a song;
Over and over I sang his name
Upward and downward I drew it along
My various notes; the same, the same!
I sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might never guess from aught they could hear,
It was only a name.

 

XIII.
I look on the sky and the sea
We were two to love, and two to pray,
Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee,
Though nothing didst Thou say.
Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun!
And now I cry who am but one,
How wilt Thou speak to-day?

 

XIV.
We were black, we were black!
We had no claim to love and bliss:
What marvel, if each turned to lack?
They wrung my cold hands out of his,
They dragged him... where ?... I crawled to touch
His blood's mark in the dust!... not much,
Ye pilgrim-souls,... though plain as this!

XV.
Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong!
Mere grief's too good for such as I.
So the white men brought the shame ere long
To strangle the sob of my agony.
They would not leave me for my dull
Wet eyes! it was too merciful
To let me weep pure tears and die.

 

XVI.
I am black, I am black!
I wore a child upon my breast
An amulet that hung too slack,
And, in my unrest, could not rest:
Thus we went moaning, child and mother,
One to another, one to another,
Until all ended for the best:

 

XVII.
For hark ! I will tell you low... Iow... 
I am black, you see,
And the babe who lay on my bosom so,
Was far too white... too white for me;
As white as the ladies who scorned to pray
Beside me at church but yesterday;
Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.

 

XVIII.
My own, own child! I could not bear
To look in his face, it was so white.
I covered him up with a kerchief there;
I covered his face in close and tight:
And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,
For the white child wanted his liberty
Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.

 

XIX.
He moaned and beat with his head and feet,
His little feet that never grew
He struck them out, as it was meet,
Against my heart to break it through.
I might have sung and made him mild
But I dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I knew.

 

XX.
I pulled the kerchief very close:
He could not see the sun, I swear,
More, then, alive, than now he does
From between the roots of the mango... where
... I know where. Close! a child and mother
Do wrong to look at one another,
When one is black and one is fair.

 

XXI.
Why, in that single glance I had
Of my child's face,... I tell you all,
I saw a look that made me mad... 
The master's look, that used to fall
On my soul like his lash... or worse!
And so, to save it from my curse,
I twisted it round in my shawl.

 

XXII.
And he moaned and trembled from foot to head,
He shivered from head to foot;
Till, after a time, he lay instead
Too suddenly still and mute.
I felt, beside, a stiffening cold,... 
I dared to lift up just a fold... 
As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.

 

XXIII.
But my fruit... ha, ha! there, had been
(I laugh to think on't at this hour!...)
Your fine white angels, who have seen
Nearest the secret of God's power,... 
And plucked my fruit to make them wine,
And sucked the soul of that child of mine,
As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower.

 

XXIV.
Ha, ha, for the trick of the angels white!
They freed the white child's spirit so.
I said not a word, but, day and night,
I carried the body to and fro;
And it lay on my heart like a stone... as chill.
The sun may shine out as much as he will:
I am cold, though it happened a month ago.

 

XXV.
From the white man's house, and the black man's hut,
I carried the little body on,
The forest's arms did round us shut,
And silence through the trees did run:
They asked no question as I went,
They stood too high for astonishment,
They could see God sit on His throne.

 

XXVI.
My little body, kerchiefed fast,
I bore it on through the forest... on:
And when I felt it was tired at last,
I scooped a hole beneath the moon.
Through the forest-tops the angels far,
With a white sharp finger from every star,
Did point and mock at what was done.

 

XXVII.
Yet when it was all done aright,... 
Earth, 'twixt me and my baby, strewed,
All, changed to black earth,... nothing white,... 
A dark child in the dark, ensued
Some comfort, and my heart grew young:
I sate down smiling there and sung
The song I learnt in my maidenhood.

 

XXVIII.
And thus we two were reconciled,
The white child and black mother, thus:
For, as I sang it, soft and wild
The same song, more melodious,
Rose from the grave whereon I sate!
It was the dead child singing that,
To join the souls of both of us.

 

XXIX.
I look on the sea and the sky!
Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay,
The free sun rideth gloriously;
But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away
Through the earliest streaks of the morn.
My face is black, but it glares with a scorn
Which they dare not meet by day.

 

XXX.
Ah! in their 'stead, their hunter sons!
Ah, ah! they are on me, they hunt in a ring
Keep off! I brave you all at once
I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!
You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think:
Did you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink
From the stroke of her wounded wing?

 

XXXI.
(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!)
I wish you, who stand there five a-breast,
Each, for his own wife's joy and gift,
A little corpse as safely at rest
As mine in the mangos! Yes, but she
May keep live babies on her knee,
And sing the song she liketh best.

 

XXXll.
I am not mad: I am black.
I see you staring in my face
I know you, staring, shrinking back
Ye are born of the Washington-race:
And this land is the free America:
And this mark on my wrist... (I prove what I say)
Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

 

XXXIII.
You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!
I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun.
I only cursed them all around,
As softly as I might have done
My very own child! From these sands
Up to the mountains, lift your hands,
O slaves, and end what I begun!

XXXIV.
Whips, curses; these must answer those!
For in this UNION, you have set
Two kinds of men in adverse rows,
Each loathing each: and all forget
The seven wounds in Christ's body fair;
While HE sees gaping everywhere
Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

 

XXXV.
Our wounds are different. Your white men
Are, after all, not gods indeed,
Nor able to make Christs again
Do good with bleeding. We who bleed... 
(Stand off!) we help not in our loss!
We are too heavy for our cross,
And fall and crush you and your seed.

 

XXXVI.
I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky:
The clouds are breaking on my brain;
I am floated along, as if I should die
Of liberty's exquisite pain
In the name of the white child, waiting for me
In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree,
White men, I leave you all curse-free
In my broken heart's disdain!

 

 

THE SLAVE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp

The hunted Negro lay;

He saw the fire of the midnight camp,

And heard at times a horse’s tramp

And a bloodhound’s distant bay.

 

Where will-o’-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,

In bulrush and in brake;

Where waving mosses shroud the pine,

And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine

Is spotted like the snake;

 

Where hardly a human foot could pass,

Or a human heart would dare,

On the quaking turf of the green morass

He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,

Like a wild beast in his lair.

 

A poor old slave, infirm and lame;

Great scars deformed his face;

On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,

And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,

Were the livery of disgrace.

 

All things above were bright and fair,

All things were glad and free;

Lithe squirrels darted here and there,

And wild birds filled the echoing air

With songs of Liberty!

 

On him alone was the doom of pain,

From the morning of his birth;

On him alone the curse of Cain

Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,

And struck him to the earth!

 

 

THE SLAVE TRADE MERCHANT Juan Francisco Manzano

Behold, yon placid, plodding, staid old man, 
His still and solemn features closely scan! 
In his calm look how wisdom's light is shed, 
How the grey hairs, become his honoured head! 
Mark how the merchants bow, as he goes by, 
How men on 'Change, at his approach draw nigh, 
'Highly respected,' and esteemed; 'tis said, 
His fame to Afric's farthest shore is spread! 
Behold, his house!-if marble speak elsewhere, 
'Sermons in stones' are with a vengeance here, 
Whate'er the potent will of wealth can do 
Or pride can wish, is offered to your view. 
Those gay saloons, this banquet hall's array, 
This glaring pile in all its pomp survey, 
The grandeur strikes-one must not look for taste
What's gorgeous, cannot always be quite chaste. 
 
Behold, his heart! it is not all that's fair 
And smooth without, that's staunch and sound elsewhere. 
E'en in the calmest breast, the lust of gold 
May have its firmest seat and fastest hold, 
May fix its fatal canker in the core, 
Reach every feeling, taint it more and more; 
Nor leave one spot of soundness where it falls, 
Nor spark of pity where its lust enthralls. 
Behold, his conscience! oh, what deep repose, 
It slumbers on in one long deadly doze: 
Why do you wonder that it thus does sleep; 
That crime should prosper, or that guilt so deep, 
So long unfelt should seem unscathed, in fine, 
Should know no shame, and fear no law divine. 
 
Is there a curse like that which shrines offence, 
Which hardens crime and sears the moral sense, 
And leaves the culprit in his guilt unshamed, 
And takes him hence unchanged and unreclaimed. 
Behold, the peace that's owned by him who feels 
He does no wrong, or outrage when he deals 
In human flesh; or yet supplies the gold 
To stir the strife, whose victims you behold. 
 
The Cuban merchant prosecutes his trade 
Without a qualm, or a reproach being made; 
Sits at his desk, and with composure sends 
A formal order to his Gold-coast friends 
For some five hundred 'bultos' of effects, 
And bids them ship 'the goods' as he directs. 
That human cargo, to its full amount, 
Is duly bought and shipped on his account; 
Stowed to the best advantage in the hold, 
And limb to limb in chains, as you behold; 
On every breast, the well-known brand, J. G. 
In letters bold, engraved on flesh you see. 
The slaves by times are in their fetters used 
To dance and sing, and forcibly amused, 
To make the negroes merry when they pine, 
Or seem to brood o'er some concealed design. 
And when the voyage to its close draws near, 
No pains are spared to make the slaves appear 
In fit condition for the market stall; 
Their limbs are greased, their heads are shaved, and all 
These naked wretches, wasted as they are, 
And marked with many a recent wound and scar, 
Are landed boldly on the coast, and soon 
Are penned, like cattle, in the barricone. 
Tricked out for sale and huddled in a mass, 
Exposed to ev'ry broker who may pass, 
Rudely examined, roused with the 'courbash,' 
And walked, and run, and startled with the lash, 
Or ranged in line are sold by parcel there; 
Spectres of men! the pictures of despair. 
 
Their owner comes, 'the royal merchant' deigns 
To view his chattels, and to count his gains. 
To him, what boots it, how these slaves were made, 
What wrongs the poor have suffered by his trade. 
To him, what boots it, if the sale is good, 
How many perished in the fray of blood! 
How many peaceful hamlets were attacked, 
And poor defenceless villages were sacked! 
How many wretched beings in each town 
Maimed at the onslaught, or in flight cut down! 
How many infants from the breast were torn, 
And frenzied mothers dragged away forlorn! 
To him, what boots it, how the ship is crammed; 
How many hundreds in the hold are jammed! 
How small the space! what piteous cries below! 
What frightful tumult in that den of woe! 
Or how the hatches when the gale comes on, 
Are battened down, and ev'ry hope seems gone; 
What struggling hands in vain are lifted there, 
Or how the lips are parched that move in prayer, 
Or mutter imprecations wild and dread, 
On all around, the dying and the dead: 
What cares the merchant for that crowded hold, 
The voyage pays, if half the slaves are sold! 
 
What does it matter to that proud senor, 
How many sick have sunk to rise no more; 
How many children in the waving throng, 
Crushed in the crowd, or trampled by the strong! 
What boots it, in that dungeon of despair, 
How many beings gasp and pant for air! 
How many creatures draw infected breath, 
And drag out life, aye, in the midst of death! 
Yet to look down, my God, one instant there, 
The shrieks and groans of that live mass to hear; 
To breathe that horrid atmosphere, and dwell 
But for one moment in that human hell! 
It matters little, if he sell the sound, 
How many sick, that might not sell, were drowned; 
How many wretched creatures pined away, 
Or wasted bodies made their 'plash' per day? 
 
They're only negroes:-true, they count not here, 
Perhaps, their cries and groans may count elsewhere, 
And one on high may say for these and all, 
A price was paid, and it redeemed from thrall. 
If the proud 'merchants who are princes' here, 
Believe his word, or his commandments fear, 
How can they dare to advocate this trade, 
Or call the sacred scriptures to its aid. 
How can they have the boldness to lay claim, 
And boast their title to the christian name; 
Or yet pretend to walk in reason's light, 
And wage eternal war with human right. 
 
The pen does all the business of the sword, 
On Congo's shore, the Cuban merchant's word 
Serves to send forth a thousand brigands bold, 
'To make a prey,' and fill another hold; 
To ravage distant nations at his ease, 
By written order, just as he may please: 
'Set snares and traps to catch' his fellow-men, 
And 'lie in wait' to link their fetters, then, 
Send forth his agents to foment the strife 
Of hostile tribes-and when their feuds are rife, 
To waste a province to provide a prey, 
Yet dare to make humanity his plea. 
 
Is there no sacred minister of peace 
To raise his voice, and bid these horrors cease? 
No holy priest in all this ruthless clime, 
To warn these men, or to denounce their crime? 
No new Las Casas to be found once more, 
To leave his country for this blood-stained shore; 
And tell the titled felon of his deeds, 
With all the freedom the occasion needs? 
Alas! no voice is raised in Cuba-save 
To plead for bondage, and revile the slave, 
Basely to pander to oppression's aim, 
And desecrate religion's sacred name. 
Yet in this moral Golgotha, where round 
The grave of mercy none but foes are found, 
 
Some lone and weary pilgrim may have come, 
And caused a voice to echo from this tomb. 
From him, perhaps, the proud oppressors e'en 
May hear the crimes, they still would strive to screen, 
And find a corner of the veil they cast 
O'er Cuban bondage has been raised-at last, 
And some, perhaps, at length aroused may think, 
With all their gold they stand on ruin's brink, 
And learn, at last, to ask of their own breasts, 
Why have they used their fellow-men like beasts; 
Why should it be that each should thus 'depise 
His brother' man, and scoff 'the stranger's cries?' 
'Have they not all one Father who's above? 
Hath not one God created them in love? 
Are they not all in God's own image made, 
Or were the words of life to be Obeyed?' 
Or held unworthy of the Lord on high, 
'He that shall steal and sell a man shall die?' 
 
Perhaps, fanatics only in their zeal, 
May think that others, thus should speak or feel, 
And none but zealots dream, that negroes' rights 
Were God's own gifts, as well, as those of whites. 
Perhaps, the Cuban merchant too, may think 
In guilt's great chain, he's but the farthest link. 
Forsooth, he sees not all the ills take place, 
Nor goes in person to the human chase; 
 
He does not hunt the negro down himself, 
Of course, he only furnishes the pelf. 
He does not watch the blazing huts beset, 
Nor slips the horde at rapine's yell, nor yet 
Selects the captives from the wretched band, 
Nor spears the aged with his own right hand. 
The orphan's cries, the wretched mother's groans, 
He does not hear; nor sees the human bones 
Strewed o'er the desert bleaching in the sun, 
Memorials sad, of former murders done. 
He does not brand the captives for the mart, 
Nor stow the cargo-'tis the captain's part; 
To him the middle passage only seems 
A trip of pleasure that with profit teems; 
Some sixty deaths or so, on board his ship, 
Are bagatelles in such a gainful trip; 
Nay, fifty thousand dollars he can boast, 
The smallest cargo yields him from the coast. 
 
He need not leave his counting-house, 'tis true, 
Nor bid Havana and its joys adieu, 
To start the hunt on Afric's burning shore, 
And drench its soil with streams of human gore; 
He need not part with friends and comrades here 
To sever nature's dearest ties elsewhere; 
Nor risk the loss of friendship with the host 
Of foreign traders, when he sweeps the coast. 
 
But this most grave and 'excellent Senor,' 
Is cap in hand with the official corps, 
Receives the homage due to wealth that's gained, 
No matter how, or where it be obtained. 
His friends are too indulgent to proclaim 
What deeds are coupled with his wide-spread fame. 
'Tis true, he merely purchases the prey, 
And kills by proxy only in the fray; 
His agents simply snare the victims first, 
They make the war, and he defrays the cost. 
 
Such is the merchant in his trade of blood; 
The Indian savage in his fiercest mood 
Is not more cruel, merciless in strife, 
Ruthless in war, and reckless of man's life! 
To human suffering, sympathy, and shame, 
His heart is closed, and wealth is all his aim. 
Behold, him now in social circles shine, 
Polite and courteous, bland-almost benign, 
Calm as the grave, yet affable to all, 
His well-taught smile has nothing to appal; 
It plays like sunbeams on a marble tomb, 
Or coldly glancing o'er the death-like gloom, 
Creeps o'er his features, as the crisping air, 
On Lake Asphaltes steals, and stagnates there. 
 
Serene as summer how the Euxine looks 
Before the gale its slumb'ring rage provokes. 
Who would imagine, while the calm is there, 
What deadly work its depths might still declare? 
Or think, beneath such gently swelling waves 
Thousands of human beings find their graves, 
But who can ponder here, and reconcile 
The scowl of murder, with its merchant's smile! 
 
Behold, his friends! observe the kindred traits, 
They must resemble, for one draught pourtrays 
The tribe of Cuban traders, linked in crime 
Of ev'ry grade in guilt, of every clime. 
Stealers of men, and shedders of man's gore; 
The more they grasp, the rage for gain the more, 
Contagious guilt within their circle reigns, 
And all in contact with it shows its stains. 
Behold, the land! regard its fertile fields, 
Look on the victims of the wealth it yields; 
Ask of these creatures how they came to be 
Dragged from their homes, and sold in slavery? 
And when you hear 'the cry' of men 'go up.' 
'Robbed of their hire,' and made to drink the cup 
Of grief, whose bitter anguish is above 
All human woe, the wretched can approve, 
Think on their wrongs, and venture to reply, 
'Shall not the land yet tremble' for this cry! 
 
God of all light and truth, in mercy cause 
The men who rule these lands to fear thy laws. 
O'erthrow oppression, stalled in guilty state; 
Raise the poor stranger, spoiled and desolate. 
Reprove the despot, and redeem the slave; 
For help there's none, but thine that here can save. 
Thou who can'st 'loose the fettered in due time,' 
Break down this bondage, yet forgive its crime; 
Let truth and justice, fraught with mercy still, 
Prevail at last o'er every tyrant's will.

 

 

THE SLAVE GIRL’S ADDRESS TO HER MOTHER BY Sarah Louisa Forten

Oh! mother, weep not, though our lot be hard,
And we are helpless-God will be our guard:
For He our heavenly guardian doth not sleep;
He watches o'er us-mother, do not weep.
And grieve not for that dear loved home no more;
Our sufferings and our wrongs, ah! why deplore?
For though we feel the stern oppressor's rod,
Yet he must yield as well as we, to God.
Torn from our home, our kindred and our friends,
And in a stranger's land, our days to end,
No heart feels for the poor, the bleeding slave;
No arm is stretched to rescue and to save.
Oh! ye who boast of Freedom's sacred claims,
Do ye not blush to see our galling chains;
To hear that sounding word-'that all are free'
When thousands groan in hopeless slavery?
Upon your land it is a cruel stain
Freedom, what art thou? nothing but a name.
No more, no more! Oh God, this cannot be;
Thou to thy children's aid wilt surely flee:
In thine own time deliverance thou wilt give,
And bid us rise from slavery, and live. 

 

 

THE SLAVE DEALER By Thomas Pringle

From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,

With visage tanned and dun:

His Mother, when he told his name,

Scarce knew her long-lost son;

So altered was his face and frame

By the ill course he had run.

There was hot fever in his blood,

And dark thoughts in his brain;

And oh! to turn his heart to good

That Mother strove in vain,

For fierce and fearful was his mood,

Racked by remorse and pain.

And if, at times, a gleam more mild

Would o'er his features stray,

When knelt the Widow near her Child,

And he tried with her to pray,

It lasted not for visions wild

Still scared good thoughts away.

"There's blood upon my hands!" he said,

"Which water cannot wash;

It was not shed where warriors bled

It dropped from the gory lash,

As I whirled it o'er and o'er my head,

And with each stroke left a gash.

"With every stroke I left a gash,

While Negro blood sprang high;

And now all ocean cannot wash

My soul from murder's dye;

Nor e'en thy prayer, dear Mother, quash

That Woman's wild death-cry!

"Her cry is ever in my ear,

And it will not let me pray;

Her look I see her voice I hear

As when in death she lay,

And said, 'With me thou must appear

On God's great Judgment-day!'"

"Now, Christ from frenzy keep my son!"

The woeful Widow cried; 49

"Such murder foul thou ne'er hast done

Some fiend thy soul belied!"

" Nay, Mother! the Avenging One

Was witness when she died!

"The writhing wretch with furious heel

I crushed no mortal nigh;

But that same hour her dread appeal

Was registered on high;

And now with God I have to deal,

And dare not meet His eye!"

 

 

A DOZEN BALLADS ABOUT WHITE SLAVERY. II. The Factory Slave

by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Pale, and shabby, and looking so ill,

Hungry and cold and wet,

On a winter's morning going to mill

The factory-child I met:

All the day long among perilous wheels,

His duty it was to tend

Spindles and jennies and shuttles and reels,

A toil without an end,

For iron never grows weary, nor feels,

Nor ever made child its friend!

One among hundreds was that boy

Who never had known of a home nor a toy,

But work'd without hope, and lived without joy!

Stunted, sorrowful, looking so old,

Blear-eyed, weary and wan,

Though thrice ten years had barely been told,

I came to the factory man:

All life long in a poisonous air,

Blighting to body and mind,

Where health soon turns to be stagnant there,

And piety deaf and blind,

His lot was a loom and a ricketty chair,

And cotton to weave and wind!

One among thousands all alike

His only excitements were Drink and the Strike,

To think of the torch and to dream of the pike!

Faded, slatternly, looking so weak,

Tho' once a Scotch lassie so braw,

With sin in her eye, and disease on her cheek,

The factory-girl I saw:

That close dim room was her home for years 50

With all things vile to endure,

Irksome labour, and quarrels, and jeers,

And words and deeds impure,

And so till Death,- amid sorrows and fears,

And all without a cure!

One of a multitude was that girl

Slaving amid the machinery's whirl,

Bold, and beggar'd of modesty's pearl!

O but how base and shameful a thing

Is this, ye getters of wealth,-

That your prosperities Ruin should bring

On happiness, virtue, and health!

Consider the Mind, remember the Soul,

Of these poor Bodies take care;

If Providence over them gives you control,

As stewards to be judged, beware!

And you, good men,- ay, good on the whole,

No Strikes! - lt all be fair.

Thus, on a just anti-slavery plan

Let each do well, as well as he can,

And all will go better with Master and Man!

 

 

THE SAILOR WHO HAD SERVED IN THE SLAVE TRADE By Robert Southey

He stopt, it surely was a groan
That from the hovel came!
He stopt and listened anxiously
Again it sounds the same.
 
It surely from the hovel comes!
And now he hastens there,
And thence he hears the name of Christ
Amidst a broken prayer.
 
He entered in the hovel now,
A sailor there he sees,
His hands were lifted up to Heaven
And he was on his knees.
 
Nor did the Sailor so intent
His entering footsteps heed,
But now the Lord's prayer said, and now
His half-forgotten creed.
 
And often on his Saviour call'd
With many a bitter groan,
In such heart-anguish as could spring
From deepest guilt alone.
 
He ask'd the miserable man
Why he was kneeling there,
And what the crime had been that caus'd
The anguish of his prayer.
 
Oh I have done a wicked thing!
It haunts me night and day,
And I have sought this lonely place
Here undisturb'd to pray.
 
I have no place to pray on board
So I came here alone,
That I might freely kneel and pray,
And call on Christ and groan.
 
If to the main-mast head I go,
The wicked one is there,
From place to place, from rope to rope,
He follows every where.
 
I shut my eyes, it matters not
Still still the same I see,
And when I lie me down at night
'Tis always day with me.
 
He follows follows everywhere,
And every place is Hell!
O God and I must go with him
In endless fire to dwell.
 
He follows follows everywhere,
He's still above, below,
Oh tell me where to fly from him!
Oh tell me where to go!
 
But tell me, quoth the Stranger then,
What this thy crime hath been,
So haply I may comfort give
To one that grieves for sin.
 
O I have done a cursed deed
The wretched man replies,
And night and day and every where
'Tis still before my eyes.
 
I sail'd on board a Guinea-man
And to the slave-coast went;
Would that the sea had swallowed me
When I was innocent!
 
And we took in our cargo there,
Three hundred negroe slaves,
And we sail'd homeward merrily
Over the ocean waves.
 
But some were sulky of the slaves
And would not touch their meat,
So therefore we were forced by threats
And blows to make them eat.
 
One woman sulkier than the rest
Would still refuse her food,
O Jesus God! I hear her cries
I see her in her blood!
 
The Captain made me tie her up
And flog while he stood by,
And then he curs'd me if I staid
My hand to hear her cry.
 
She groan'd, she shriek'd, I could not spare
For the Captain he stood by
Dear God! that I might rest one night
From that poor woman's cry!
 
She twisted from the blows, her blood
Her mangled flesh I see
And still the Captain would not spare
Oh he was worse than me!
 
She could not be more glad than I
When she was taken down,
A blessed minute, 'twas the last
That I have ever known!
 
I did not close my eyes all night,
Thinking what I had done;
I heard her groans and they grew faint
About the rising sun.
 
She groan'd and groan'd, but her groans grew
Fainter at morning tide,
Fainter and fainter still they came
Till at the noon she died.
 
They flung her overboard; poor wretch
She rested from her pain,
But when, O Christ! O blessed God!
Shall I have rest again!
 
I saw the sea close over her,
Yet she was still in sight;
I see her twisting every where;
I see her day and night.
 
Go where I will, do what I can
The wicked one I see
Dear Christ have mercy on my soul,
O God deliver me!
 
To morrow I set sail again
Not to the Negroe shore
Wretch that I am I will at least
Commit that sin no more.
 
O give me comfort if you can
Oh tell me where to fly
And bid me hope, if there be hope,
For one so lost as I.
 
Poor wretch, the stranger he replied,
Put thou thy trust in heaven,
And call on him for whose dear sake
All sins shall be forgiven.
 
This night at least is thine, go thou
And seek the house of prayer,
There shalt thou hear the word of God
And he will help thee there! 

 

 

 

THE SLAVE’S LAMENT By Robert Burns

It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthrall

For the lands of Virginia-ginia O;

Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more,

And alas! I am weary, weary O! Torn from &c.

All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost,

Like the lands of Virginia-ginia O;

There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,

And alas! I am weary, weary O! There streams &c.

The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,

In the lands of Virginia-ginia O;

And I think on friends most dear with the bitter, bitter tear,

And Alas! I am weary, weary O!

And I think &c.

 

 

EPISTLE OF CONDOLENCE FROM A SLAVE LORD TO A COTTOM LORD

by Thomas Moore

Alas ! my dear friend, what a state of affairs!

How unjustly we both are despoil'd of our rights!

Not a pound of black flesh shall I leave to my heirs,

Nor must you any more work to death little whites.

Both forced to submit to that general controller

Of King, Lords, and cotton-mills Public Opinion;

No more shall you beat with a big billy-roller,

Nor I with the cart-whip assert my dominion.

Whereas, were we suffered to do as we please

With our Blacks and our Whites, as of yore we were let,

We might range them alternate, like harpsichord keys,

And between us thump out a good piebald duet.

But this fun is all over; farewell to the zest

Which Slavery now lends to each cup we sip;

Which makes still the cruellest coffee the best,

And that sugar the sweetest which smacks of the whip.

Farewell, too, the Factory's white pickaninnies,

Small, living machines, which, if flogg'd to their tasks,

Mix so well with their namesakes, the billies and jennies,

That which have got souls in 'em nobody asks ;

Little Maids of the Mill, who, themselves but ill fed,

Are oblig'd, 'mong their other benevolent cares,

To keep 'feeding the scribblers,' and better, 'tis said,

Than old Blackwood or Fraser have ever fed theirs.

All this is now o'er, and so dismal my loss is,

So hard 'tis to part from the smack of the thong,

That I mean (from pure love for the old whipping process)

To take to whipt syllabub all my life long.

 

 

ON READING MR CLARKSON’S HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE by John Wilson

'Mid the august and never-dying light

Of constellated spirits, who have gain'd

A throne in heaven, by power of heavenly acts,

And leave their names immortal and unchanged

On earth, even as the names of Sun and Moon,

See'st thou, my soul ! 'mid all that radiant host

One worthier of thy love and reverence,

Than He, the fearless spirit, who went forth,

Mail'd in the armour of invincible faith,

And bearing in his grasp the spear of truth,

Fit to destroy and save, went forth to wage,

Against the fierce array of bloody men,

Avarice and ignorance, cruelty and hate,

A holy warfare ! Deep within his soul,

The groans of anguish, and the clank of chains,

Dwelt ceaseless as a cataract, and fill'd

The secret haunts of meditative prayer.

Encircled by the silence of the hearth,

The evening-silence of a happy home;

Upon his midnight bed, when working soul

Turns inward, and the steady flow of thought
Is all we feel of life ; in crowded rooms,

Where mere sensation oft takes place of mind,

And all time seems the present; in the sun,

The joyful splendour of a summer-day;

Or 'neath the moon, the calm and gentle night;

Where'er he moved, one vision ever fill'd
His restless spirit.  'Twas a vision bright

With colours born in Heaven, yet oh! bedimm'd

With breath of sorrow, sighs, and tears, and blood!

Before him lay a quarter of the world,

A Mighty Land, wash'd by unnumber'd floods,

Born in her bosom, floods that to the sea
Roll ocean-like, or in the central wilds

Fade like the dim day melting into night;

A land all teeming with the gorgeous shew
Of Nature in profuse magnificence!

Vallies and groves, where untamed herds have ranged

Without a master since the birth of time!

Fountains and caves fill'd with the hidden light
Of diamond and of ruby, only view'd

With admiration by the unenvying sun!

Millions of beings like himself he sees
In stature and in soul, the sons of God,

Destined to do him homage, and to lift

Their fearless brows unto the burning sky,

Stamp'd with his holy image!

Noble shapes, Kings of the desert, men whose stately tread
Brings from the dust the sound of liberty!

The vision fades not here; he sees the gloom

That lies upon these kingdoms of the sun,

And makes them darker than the dreary realms,

Scarce-moving at the pole.

A sluggish flow

Attends those floods so great and beautiful,

Rolling in majesty that none adores!

And lo ! the faces of those stately men,

Silent as death, or changed to ghastly shapes

By madness and despair! His ears are torn

By shrieks and ravings, loud, and long, and wild,

Or the deep-mutter'd curse of sullen hearts,

Scorning in bitter woe their gnawing chains!

He sees, and shuddering feels the vision true,

A pale-faced band, who in his mother-isle

First look'd upon the day, beneath its light

Dare to be tyrants, and with coward deeds

Sullying the glory of the Queen of Waves!

He sees that famous Isle, whose very winds

Dissolve like icicles the tyrant's chains,

On Afric bind them firm as adamant,

Yet boast, with false and hollow gratitude,

Of all the troubled nations of the earth

That she alone is free!

The awful sight Appals not him; he draws his lonely breath

Without a tremor ; for a voice is heard

Breathed by no human lips, heard by his soul,

That he by Heaven is chosen to restore
Mercy on earth, a mighty conqueror

Over the sins and miseries of man.

The work is done ! the Niger's sullen waves

Have heard the tidings, and the orient Sun
Beholds them rolling on to meet his light In joyful beauty.

Tombût's spiry towers

Are bright without the brightness of the day,

And Houssa wakening from his age-long trance

Of woe, amid the desert, smiles to hear

The last faint echo of the blissful sound.

 

 

SWEET MEAT HAS SOUR SAUCE; OR, THE SLAVE TRADER IN THE DUMPS

by William Cowper

A trader I am to the African shore,

But since that my trading is like to be o'er,

I'll sing you a song that you ne'er heard before,

Which nobody can deny, deny,

Which nobody can deny.

When I first heard the news it gave me a shock,

Much like what they call an electrical knock,

And now I am going to sell off my stock,

Which nobody, &c.

Tis a curious assortment of dainty regales,

To tickle the Negroes with when the ship sails,

Fine chains for the neck, and a cat with nine tails,

Which nobody, &c.

Here's supple-jack plenty and store of rat-tan,

That will wind itself round the sides of a man,

As close as a hoop round a bucket or can,

Which nobody, &c.

Here's padlocks and bolts, and screws for the thumbs,

That squeeze them so lovingly till the blood comes,

They sweeten the temper like comfits or plums,

Which nobody, &c.

 

When a Negro his head from his victuals withdraws,

And clenches his teeth and thrusts out his paws,

Here's a notable engine to open his jaws,

Which nobody, &c.

Thus going to market, we kindly prepare

A pretty black cargo of African ware,

For what they must meet with when they get there,

Which nobody, &c.

'Twould do your heart good to see 'em below,

Lie flat on their backs all the way as we go,

Like sprats on a gridiron, scores in a row,

Which nobody, &c.

But ah! if in vain I have studied an art

So gainful to me, all boasting apart, I think it will break my compassionate heart,

Which nobody, &c.

For oh! how it enters my soul like an awl!

This pity, which some people self-pity call, Is sure the most heart-piercing pity of all,

Which nobody, &c.

So this is my song, as I told you before;

Come, buy off my stock, for I must no more

Carry Caesars and Pompeys to Sugar-cane shore,

Which nobody can deny, deny,

Which nobody can deny.

 

 

HYMN FOR THE FIRST OF AUGUST by John Pierpoint       

Where Britannia's emerald isles

Gem the Caribbean sea,

And an endless summer smiles,

Lo! the negro thrall is free!

Yet not on Columbia's plains,

Hath the sun of freedom risen:

Here, in darkness and in chains,

Toiling millions pine in prison.

Shout! ye islands disenthralled,

Point the finger, as in scorn,

At a country that is called

Freedom's home, where men are born

Heirs, for life, to chains and whips,

Bondmen, who have never known

Wife, child, parent, that their lips

Ever dared to call their own.

Yet, a Christian land is this!

Yea, and ministers of Christ

Slavery's foot, in homage, kiss;

And their brother, who is priced

Higher than their Saviour, even,

Do they into bondage sell;

Pleading thus the cause of Heaven,

Serving thus the cause of hell.

Holy Father, let thy word,

Spoken by thy prophets old,

By the pliant priest be heard;

And let lips, that now are cold,

(Chilled by Mammon's golden wand!)

With our nation's 'burden' glow,

Till the free man and the bond

Shout for Slavery's overthrow!

 

 

PRAYER OF THE ABOLITIONIST By John Pierpoint

We ask not that the slave should lie,

As lies his master, at his ease,

Beneath a silken canopy,

Or in the shade of blooming trees.

We mourn not that the man should toil;

'T is nature's need—'t is God's decree;

But, let the hand that tills the soil,

Be, like the wind that fans it, free.

We ask not 'eye for eye'—that all,

Who forge the chain and ply the whip,

Should feel their torture—that the thrall

Should wield the scourge of mastership

We only ask, O God, that they,

Who bind a brother, may relent:

But, GREAT AVENGER, we do pray

That the wrong-doer may repent.

 

 

Prayer Of The Christian by John Pierpoint

With thy pure dews and rains,

Wash out, O God, the stains,

From Afric's shore;

And, while her palm trees bud,

Let not her children's blood,

With her broad Niger's flood,

Be mingled more!

Quench, righteous God, the thirst,

That Congo's sons hath cursed

The thirst for gold!

Shall not thy thunders speak,

Where Mammon's altars reek,

Where maids and matrons shriek,

Bound, bleeding, sold?

Hear'st thou, O God, those chains,

Clanking on Freedom's plains,

By Christians wrought?

Them, who those chains have worn,

Christians from home have torn,

Christians have hither borne,

Christians have bought!

Cast down, great God, the fanes

That, to unhallowed gains,

Round us have risen

Temples, whose priesthood pore

Moses and Jesus o'er,

Then bolt the black man's door,

The poor man's prison!

Wilt thou not, Lord, at last,

From thine own image, cast

Away all cords,

But that of love, which brings

Man, from his wanderings,

Back to the King of kings,

The Lord of lords!

 

 

 

The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe To The North Star By John Pierpoint

Star of the North! though night-winds drift

The fleecy drapery of the sky,

Between thy lamp and me, I lift,

Yea, lift with hope, my sleepless eye,

To the blue heights wherein thou dwellest,

And of a land of freedom tellest.

Star of the North! while blazing day

Pours round me its full tide of light.

And hides thy pale but faithful ray,

I, too, lie hid, and long for night:

For night; I dare not walk at noon,

Nor dare I trust the faithless moon,

 

Nor faithless man, whose burning lust

For gold hath riveted my chain;

No other leader can I trust,

But thee, of even the starry train;

For, all the host around thee burning,

Like faithless man, keep turning, turning.

I may not follow where they go:

Star of the North, I look to thee,

While on I press; for well I know

Thy light and truth shall set me free;

Thy light, that no poor slave deceiveth;

Thy truth, that all my soul believeth.

They of the East beheld the star

That over Bethlehem's manger glowed;

With joy they hailed it from afar,

And followed where it marked the road,

Till, where its rays directly fell,

They found the hope of Israel.

Wise were the men, who followed thus

The star that sets man free from sin!

Star of the North! thou art to us,

 

Who're slaves because we wear a skin

Dark as is night's protecting wing,

Thou art to us a holy thing.

And we are wise to follow thee!

I trust thy steady light alone:

Star of the North! thou seem'st to me

To burn before the Almighty's throne,

To guide me, through these forests dim

And vast, to liberty and HIM.

Thy beam is on the glassy breast

Of the still spring, upon whose brink

I lay my weary limbs to rest,

And bow my parching lips to drink.

Guide of the friendless negro's way,

I bless thee for this quiet ray!

In the dark top of southern pines

I nestled, when the driver's horn

Called to the field, in lengthening lines,

My fellows, at the break of morn.

And there I lay, till thy sweet face

Looked in upon 'my hiding-place.'

 

The tangled cane-brake,where I crept,

For shelter from the heat of noon,

And where, while others toiled, I slept,

Till wakened by the rising moon,

As its stalks felt the night-wind free,

Gave me to catch a glimpse of thee.

Star of the North! in bright array,

The constellations round thee sweep,

Each holding on its nightly way,

Rising, or sinking in the deep,

And, as it hangs in mid heaven flaming,

The homage of some nation claiming.

This nation to the Eagle cowers;

Fit ensign! she's a bird of spoil;

Like worships like! for each devours

The earnings of another's toil.

I've felt her talons and her beak,

And now the gentler Lion seek.

The Lion, at the Virgin's feet,

Couches, and lays his mighty paw

 

Into her lap! an emblem meet

Of England's Queen and English law:

Queen, that hath made her Islands free!

Law that holds out its shield to me!

Star of the North! upon that shield

Thou shinest!—O, forever shine!

The negro, from the cotton-field,

Shall then beneath its orb recline,

And feed the Lion couched before it,

Nor heed the Eagle screaming o'er it!

 

 

PRAYER FOR THE SLAVE By John Pierpoint

Almighty God! thou Giver

Of all our sunny plains,

That stretch from sea to river,

Hear'st thou thy children's chains?

Seest thou the snappered lashes,

That daily sting, afresh?

Seest thou the cow-skin's gashes,

Cut through the quivering flesh?

Seest thou the sores, that rankle,

Licked by no pitying dog,

Where, round the bondman's ancle,

They've rivetted a clog?

Hear'st thou the curse he mutters?

Seest thou his flashing eye?

Hear'st thou the prayer he utters,

That thou would'st let him die?

God of the poor and friendless,

Shall this unequalled wrong,

This agony, be endless?

How long, O Lord, how long

Shall man set, on his brother,

The iron heel of sin,

The Holy Ghost to smother

To crush the God within!

Call out, O God, thy legions

The hosts of love and light!

Ev'n in the blasted regions

That Slavery wraps in night,

Some of thine own anointed

Shall catch the welcome call,

And, at the hour appointed,

Do battle for the thrall.

Let press, let pulpit thunder,

In all slaveholders' ears,

Till they disgorge the plunder,

They're garnered up, for years;

Till Mississippi's Valley,

Till Carolina's coast,

Round Freedom's standard rally,

A vast, a ransomed host!

 

 

A DOZEN BALLADS ABOUT WHITE SLAVERY. IV.  The British Slave's Reply To A Political Economist By Martin Farquhar Tupper 

So! you preach me self-reliance,

Emigration, rights of man?

So! you bid me breathe defiance

As a freeborn Briton can?

Break the fetter, burst the shackle,

Let the despot find me still

Loose from all constraining tackle,

Stout of heart, and strong of will?-

 

Tell the mouse to bell the mouser,

Bid the harnessed jade kick out,

Be the lion's mean arouser

Till his cage he raves about!

Say to Lethargy, be stirring,

Counsel health to fever's cheek,

Preach cold ethics to the erring,

Teach gymnastics to the weak!

 

O, good sir! your weighty reason

Falls like feathers on a fool;

Want has no such leisure season

No such chance to go to school:

Bitter circumstance has bound me,

Everyway its serf and slave,

And for these free hands has found me

Fetters even to the grave!

 

You have wit, and time to whet it,

Feeling, knowledge, station, might,

I - my bread it's hard to get it,

All beyond is out of sight,

Out of hope, and out of heeding;

Think you that my stinted soul

Can, like yours, on thoughts be feeding,

Or be kindled like a coal?

 

What the parson weekly preaches,

Pretty seldom understood,

What the book of Nature teaches,

That's my sum of true and good:

Gentlefolks have nobler chances

Prizes all, as things of course;

But the poor man's Circumstances

Bind him down a slave perforce!

 

Emigrate? to where I know not,

Whilst I cannot break my chain;

Rights of man? - my Rights, they show not,

And my Wrongs are shown in vain!

And, for what you call 'defiance,'

If one act, or word, or look

Even hinted 'Self-reliance,'

I'm struck off the Bailiff's book!

 

 

ON LIBERTY AND SLAVERY by George Moses Horton

Alas! and am I born for this,

To wear this slavish chain?

Deprived of all created bliss,

Through hardship, toil and pain!

 

How long have I in bondage lain,

And languished to be free!

Alas! and must I still complain—

Deprived of liberty.

 

Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief

This side the silent grave—

To soothe the pain—to quell the grief

And anguish of a slave?

 

Come Liberty, thou cheerful sound,

Roll through my ravished ears!

Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,

And drive away my fears.

 

Say unto foul oppression, Cease:

Ye tyrants rage no more,

And let the joyful trump of peace,

Now bid the vassal soar.

 

Soar on the pinions of that dove

Which long has cooed for thee,

And breathed her notes from Afric’s grove,

The sound of Liberty.

 

Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize,

So often sought by blood—

We crave thy sacred sun to rise,

The gift of nature’s God!

 

Bid Slavery hide her haggard face,

And barbarism fly:

I scorn to see the sad disgrace

In which enslaved I lie.

 

Dear Liberty! upon thy breast,

I languish to respire;

And like the Swan unto her nest,

I’d like to thy smiles retire.

 

Oh, blest asylum—heavenly balm!

Unto thy boughs I flee—

And in thy shades the storm shall calm,

With songs of Liberty!

 

 

SLAVERY By James Ephraim McGirt

Oh, slavery! why was thou so cruel, 
So cursed and so black; 
To leave your cruel footprints 
Upon our father's back. 
 
Oh, say, why did you beat him, 
Thou should'st have said depart? 
Oh, why was thou so cruel 
As to crush his manly heart? 
 
And even now his hair is gray 
In blossoms for the grave, 
And yet I see within him 
Traits learned while he's a slave. 
 
Why'd you not enslave the women, 
And let their virtue live? 
Oh, slavery wast so cruel, 
How can women forgive. 
 
The women pure as dewdrops, 
As infants at their birth; 
But slavery's ravishing passion 
Crushed virtue to the earth. 
 
The mother told the story; 
Her sons began to pine. 
She pressed them to her bosom; 
God said, "Vengence is mine." 
 
I did not tell the story 
To 'rage your little hearts; 
I thought its cruelties 
To you I would impart. 
 
And if you would seek vengence, 
The debt, life could not pay; 
Our God will judge them rightly 
On resurrection day.

 

 

THE DEATH OF SLAVERY By William Cullen Bryant

O THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,

Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield

The scourge that drove the laborer to the field,

And turn a stony gaze on human tears,

Thy cruel reign is o’er;        

Thy bondmen crouch no more

In terror at the menace of thine eye;

For He who marks the bounds of guilty power,

Long-suffering, hath heard the captive’s cry,

And touched his shackles at the appointed hour,        

And lo! they fall, and he whose limbs they galled

Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled.

 

A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent;

Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks;

Our rivers roll exulting, and their banks        

Send up hosannas to the firmament!

Fields where the bondman’s toil

No more shall trench the soil,

Seem now to bask in a serener day;

The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs        

Of heaven with more caressing softness play,

Welcoming man to liberty like theirs.

A glory clothes the land from sea to sea,

For the great land and all its coasts are free.

 

Within that land wert thou enthroned of late,        

And they by whom the nation’s laws were made,

And they who filled its judgment-seats, obeyed

Thy mandate, rigid as the will of Fate.

Fierce men at thy right hand,

With gesture of command,        

Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay;

And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not,

Shrank from thy presence, and in blank dismay

Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought;

While meaner cowards, mingling with thy train,        

Proved, from the book of God, thy right to reign.

 

Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to shore,

The wrath of Heaven o’ertook thee in thy pride;

Thou sitt’st a ghastly shadow; by thy side

Thy once strong arms hang nerveless evermore.        

And they who quailed but now

Before thy lowering brow,

Devote thy memory to scorn and shame,

And scoff at the pale, powerless thing thou art.

And they who ruled in thine imperial name,        

Subdued, and standing sullenly apart,

Scowl at the hands that overthrew thy reign,

And shattered at a blow the prisoner’s chain.

 

Well was thy doom deserved; thou didst not spare

Life’s tenderest ties, but cruelly didst part        

Husband and wife, and from the mother’s heart

Didst wrest her children, deaf to shriek and prayer;

Thy inner lair became

The haunt of guilty shame;

Thy lash dropped blood; the murderer, at thy side,        

Showed his red hands, nor feared the vengeance due.

Thou didst sow earth with crimes, and, far and wide,

A harvest of uncounted miseries grew,

Until the measure of thy sins at last

Was full, and then the avenging bolt was cast!        

 

Go now, accursed of God, and take thy place

With hateful memories of the elder time,

With many a wasting plague, and nameless crime,

And bloody war that thinned the human race;

With the Black Death, whose way        

Through wailing cities lay,

Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that built

The Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taught

To avenge a fancied guilt by deeper guilt—

Death at the stake to those that held them not.        

Lo! the foul phantoms, silent in the gloom

Of the flown ages, part to yield thee room.

 

I see the better years that hasten by

Carry thee back into that shadowy past,

Where, in the dusty spaces, void and vast,        

The graves of those whom thou hast murdered lie.

The slave-pen, through whose door

Thy victims pass no more,

Is there, and there shall the grim block remain

At which the slave was sold; while at thy feet        

Scourges and engines of restraint and pain

Moulder and rust by thine eternal seat.

There, mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes,

Dwell thou, a warning to the coming times.

 

 

THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Loud he sang the psalm of David!

He, a Negro and enslavèd,

Sang of Israel’s victory,

Sang of Zion, bright and free.

 

In that hour, when night is calmest,        

Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,

In a voice so sweet and clear

That I could not choose but hear,

 

Songs of triumph, and ascriptions,

Such as reached the swart Egyptians,        

When upon the Red Sea coast

Perished Pharaoh and his host.

 

And the voice of his devotion

Filled my soul with strange emotion;

For its tones by turns were glad,        

Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.

 

Paul and Silas, in their prison,

Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen.

And an earthquake’s arm of might

Broke their dungeon-gates at night.        

 

But, alas! what holy angel

Brings the Slave this glad evangel?

And what earthquake’s arm of might

Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?

 

 

FORMERLY A SLAVE By Herman Melville

The sufferance of her race is shown,

And retrospect of life,

Which now too late deliverance dawns upon;

Yet is she not at strife.

 

Her children's children they shall know

The good withheld from her;

And so her reverie takes prophetic cheer

In spirit she sees the stir.

 

Far down the depth of thousand years,

And marks the revel shine;

Her dusky face is lit with sober light,

Sibylline, yet benign.

 

 

THE SLAVE SHIPS By John Greenleaf Whittier

'All ready?' cried the captain;

'Ay, ay!' the seamen said;

'Heave up the worthless lubbers,

The dying and the dead.'

Up from the slave-ship's prison

Fierce, bearded heads were thrust

'Now let the sharks look to it,

Toss up the dead ones first!'

Corpse after corpse came.up,

Death had been busy there;

Where every blow is mercy,

Why should the spoiler spare?

Corpse after corpse they cast

Sullenly from the ship,

Yet bloody with the traces

Of fetter-link and whip.

Gloomily stood the captain,

With his arms upon his breast,

With his cold brow sternly knotted,

And his iron lip compressed.

'Are all the dead dogs over?'

Growled through that matted lip;

'The blind ones are no better,

Let's lighten the good ship.'

Hark! from the ship's dark bosom,

The very sounds of hell!

The ringing clank of iron,

The maniac's short, sharp yell!

The hoarse, low curse, throat-stified;

The starving infant's moan,

The horror of a breaking heart

Poured through a mother's groan.

Up from that loathsome prison

The stricken blind ones came:

Below, had all been darkness,

Above, was still the same.

Yet the holy breath of heaven

Was sweetly breathing there,

And the heated brow of fever

Cooled in the soft sea air.

'Overboard with them, shipmates!'

Cutlass and dirk were plied;

Fettered and blind, one after one,

Plunged down the vessel's side.

The sabre smote above,.

Beneath, the lean shark lay,

Waiting with wide and bloody jaw

His quick and human prey.

God of the earth! what cries

Rang upward unto thee?

Voices of agony and blood,

From ship-deck and from sea.

The last dull plunge was heard,

The last wave caught its stain,

And the unsated shark looked up

For human hearts in vain.

 

Red glowed the western waters,

The setting sun was there,

Scattering alike on wave and cloud

His fiery mesh of hair.

Amidst a group in blindness,

A solitary eye

Gazed, from the burdened slaver's deck,

Into that burning sky.

' A storm,' spoke out the gazer,

'Is gathering and at hand;

Curse on't, I'd give my other eye

For one firm rood of land.'

And then he laughed, but only

His echoed laugh replied,

For the blinded and the suffering

Alone were at his side.

Night settled on the waters,

And on a stormy heaven,

While fiercely on that lone ship's track

The thunder-gust was driven.

'A sail! — thank God, a sail!'

And as the helmsman spoke,

Up through the stormy murmur

A shout of gladness broke.

Down came the stranger vessel,

Unheeding on her way,

So near that on the slaver's deck

Fell off her driven spray.

' Ho! for the love of mercy,

We're perishing and blind!'

A wail of utter agony

Came back upon the wind:

' Help us! for we are stricken

With blindness every one;

Ten days we've floated fearfully,

Unnoting star or sun.

Our ship's the slaver Leon,

We're but a score on board;

Our slaves are all gone over,

Help, for the love of God!'

On livid brows of agony

The broad red lightning shone;

But the roar of wind and thunder

Stifled the answering groan;

Wailed from the broken waters

A last despairing cry,

As, kindling in the stormy light,

The stranger ship went by.

 

In the sunny Guadaloupe

A dark-hulled vessel lay,

With a crew who noted never

The nightfall or the day.

The blossom of the orange

Was white by every stream,

And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird

Were in the warm sunbeam.

And the sky was bright as ever,

And the moonlight slept as well,

On the palm-trees by the hillside,

And the streamlet of the dell:

And the glances of the Creole

Were still as archly deep,

And her smiles as full as ever

Of passion and of sleep.

But vain were bird and blossom,

The green earth and the sky,

And the smile of human faces,

To the slaver's darkened eye;

At the breaking of the morning,

At the star-lit evening time,

O'er a world of light and beauty

Fell the blackness of his crime.

 

 

THE SLAVE’S DREAM By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,

His sickle in his hand;

His breast was bare, his matted hair

Was buried in the sand.

Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,

He saw his Native Land.

 

Wide through the landscape of his dreams

The lordly Niger flowed;

Beneath the palm-trees on the plain

Once more a king he strode;

And heard the tinkling caravans

Descend the mountain road.

 

He saw once more his dark-eyed queen

Among her children stand;

They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,

They held him by the hand!

A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids

And fell into the sand.

 

And then at furious speed he rode

Along the Niger’s bank:

His bridle-reins were golden chains,

And, with a martial clank,

At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel

Smiting his stallion’s flank.

 

Before him, like a blood-red flag,

The bright flamingoes flew;

From morn till night he followed their flight,

O’er plains where the tamarind grew,

Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,

And the ocean rose to view.

 

At night he heard the lion roar,

And the hyena scream,

And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds

Beside some hidden stream;

And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,

Through the triumph of his dream.

 

The forests, with their myriad tongues,

Shouted of liberty;

And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,

With a voice so wild and free,

That he started in his sleep and smiled

At their tempestuous glee.

 

He did not feel the driver’s whip,

Nor the burning heat of day;

For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,

And his lifeless body lay

A worn-out fetter, that the soul

Had broken and thrown away!

 

 

THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER By John Greenleaf Whittier

Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage
 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings 
Where the noisome insect stings 
Where the fever demon strews 
Poison with the falling dews 
Where the sickly sunbeams glare 
Through the hot and misty air; 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone 
There no mother's eye is near them, 
There no mother's ear can hear them; 
Never, when the torturing lash 
Seams their back with many a gash 
Shall a mother's kindness bless them 
Or a mother's arms caress them. 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
Oh, when weary, sad, and slow, 
From the fields at night they go 
Faint with toil, and racked with pain 
To their cheerless homes again, 
There no brother's voice shall greet them 
There no father's welcome meet them. 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone 
From the tree whose shadow lay 
On their childhood's place of play; 
From the cool spring where they drank; 
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank; 
From the solemn house of prayer, 
And the holy counsels there; 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone; 
Toiling through the weary day, 
And at night the spoiler's prey. 
Oh, that they had earlier died, 
Sleeping calmly, side by side, 
Where the tyrant's power is o'er 
And the fetter galls no more! 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone; 
From Virginia's hills and waters 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone; 
By the holy love He beareth; 
By the bruised reed He spareth; 
Oh, may He, to whom alone 
All their cruel wrongs are known, 
Still their hope and refuge prove, 
With a more than mother's love. 
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!