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 | The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise |  |
“But Canada,—that dreary land
By cold and searching breezes fanned,
Inhabited by blacks and whites
Enjoying equal legal rights,
And where the whites will intermarry
With Susan, Tom, and Dick, and Harry,—
Is not indeed the place for me;
It shocks my spotless purity.
It is indeed no place for me!
The laws are based on equity,
And should I override the same,
Myself alone must bear the blame:
'Tis subject to monarchal rule,
Which I abhor with all my soul;
Republics are the home for me,
For with my health they best agree.
And if my negroes run away
And reach that cursed Canada,
O tell the story not in Gath,
They'll turn and curse me in their wrath.
And, what is worse than all beside,
The law is on the negro's side;
And give a negro but an inch
He'll seize an ell and will not flinch.
I've been, but shall go there no more;
For there I heard fierce lions roar,
The sky was quickly overcast,
The tempest blew a fearful blast,
The thunder and the lightning's glow
Seemed to convulse the ground below;
And then a voice, above the roar,
Such as I never heard before,
Addressed me and this plainly said:
‘The ground is holy which you tread!’
‘Great Britain's soil is sacred ground,
On which true liberty is found.
'Tis found by men of every grade,
Of every clime, of every shade;
No matter where declared a slave,
Or what the dialect which gave
The monstrous verdict in his case,
And doomed to servitude his race;
No matter with what solemn air
The captive was devoted there
Upon the altar of a god,
As there with trembling mien he stood;
Whene'er he treads on British ground,
With British liberty he's crowned,
And both the god and altar must
Together sink beneath the dust.
His soul majestic walks abroad
And holds communion with her God:
His tall and manly form expands
And bursts his chains and breaks his bands—
The bands which once his person galled.
And there redeemed and disenthralled,
He stands before the British Nation
An heir of full emancipation.’
By cold and searching breezes fanned,
Inhabited by blacks and whites
Enjoying equal legal rights,
And where the whites will intermarry
With Susan, Tom, and Dick, and Harry,—
Is not indeed the place for me;
It shocks my spotless purity.
It is indeed no place for me!
The laws are based on equity,
And should I override the same,
Myself alone must bear the blame:
'Tis subject to monarchal rule,
Which I abhor with all my soul;
Republics are the home for me,
For with my health they best agree.
And if my negroes run away
And reach that cursed Canada,
O tell the story not in Gath,
They'll turn and curse me in their wrath.
And, what is worse than all beside,
The law is on the negro's side;
And give a negro but an inch
He'll seize an ell and will not flinch.
I've been, but shall go there no more;
For there I heard fierce lions roar,
The sky was quickly overcast,
The tempest blew a fearful blast,
The thunder and the lightning's glow
Seemed to convulse the ground below;
And then a voice, above the roar,
Such as I never heard before,
Addressed me and this plainly said:
‘The ground is holy which you tread!’
‘Great Britain's soil is sacred ground,
On which true liberty is found.
'Tis found by men of every grade,
Of every clime, of every shade;
No matter where declared a slave,
Or what the dialect which gave
The monstrous verdict in his case,
And doomed to servitude his race;
12
The captive was devoted there
Upon the altar of a god,
As there with trembling mien he stood;
Whene'er he treads on British ground,
With British liberty he's crowned,
And both the god and altar must
Together sink beneath the dust.
His soul majestic walks abroad
And holds communion with her God:
His tall and manly form expands
And bursts his chains and breaks his bands—
The bands which once his person galled.
And there redeemed and disenthralled,
He stands before the British Nation
An heir of full emancipation.’
| The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise | |