 | Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox . |  |
157
EXTRACTS FROM BOOK III.
Who scorn the hallowed day, set heaven at naught.Heav'n would wear out whom one short sabbath tires.
Emblem and earnest of eternal rest,
A festival with fruits celestial crown'd,
A jubilee releasing him from earth,
The day delights and animates the saint.
It gives new vigour to the languid pulse
Of life divine; restores the wandering feet,
Strengthens the weak, upholds the prone to slip,
Quickens the lingering, and the sinking lifts,
Establishing them all upon a rock.
Sabbaths, like way-marks, cheer the pilgrim's path,
His progress mark, and keep his rest in view.
In life's bleak winter they are pleasant days,
Short foretastes of the long, long spring to come.
To every new-born soul, each hallowed morn
Seems like the first when every thing was new.
Time seems an angel come afresh from heav'n,
His pinions shedding fragrance as he flies,
And his bright hour-glass running sands of gold.
In every thing a smiling God is seen.
On earth his beauty blooms, and in the sun
His glory shines. In objects overlooked
On other days he now arrests the eye.
158
But on their face he now appears to dwell.
While silence reigns among the works of man,
The works of God have leave to speak his praise
With louder voice, in earth, and air, and sea.
His vital Spirit, like the light, pervades
All nature, breathing round the air of heaven,
And spreading o'er the troubled sea of life
A halcyon calm. Sight were not needed now
To bring him near, for Faith performs the work,
In solemn thought surrounds herself with God,
With such transparent vividness, she feels
Struck with admiring awe, as if transform'd
To sudden vision. Such is oft her power
In God's own house, which in th' absorbing act
Of adoration, or inspiring praise,
She with his glory fills, as once a cloud
Of radiance filled the temple's inner court;
At which display she cries with trembling awe
How dreadful is this place! while love responds,
How amiable thy courts, my King, my God!
Thou too, Napoleon, how didst thou exult
In all thy might and fame. Now too how changed!
Thy kingdom gone, how art thou driven from men,
From the great world, to spend thy days alone,
To make thee know there is a God that reigns
And gives the crowns of earth to whom he will.
By mad ambition led, how didst thou ride
With streaming colours o'er the restless waves
Of human glory. Now how art thou cast
Upon a cheerless rock, in deep disgrace,
A spectacle and warning to the world;
Thy fortunes the career, thy fate the end
Of earthly greatness, in its proudest form.
How art thou fallen! so low that e'en thy foes
Lose half their indignation at thy crimes
In pity for thy melancholy fate.
Kept in thy rocky tower, thou now art viewed
With safety, though with trembling, as long known
The tiger that had ravaged half the world.
The wand'rers of the sea who pass thine isle
And mark the spot, how small, and wild, and lone,
With wagging head and taunting lips inquire,
Is this the man that caused the earth to quake?
That burnt her cities, laid her countries waste,
And shook her thrones and kingdoms to the dust?
Where now the objects of thy heart's delight,
Where now the pomp of armies in array,
The waving banners and the dazzling arms,
The trumpet's clang, the neighing of fierce steeds,
The din of martial bands, the word, the shout,
That rouse and fire and madden all the soul
While panting for the onset, or amidst
The heat of battle? Where the victory proud,
The rattling of thy furious chariot wheels
O'er crumbling crowns and plains of bleaching bones,
The spoil of nations? the triumphal train?
The acclamation of saluting crowds,
And all the ensigns of renown and pow'r?
Gone like the pageants of a maniac's brain.
Poor solitary man, what hast thou more,
What hast thou left congenial to thy mind
To busy its dread workings, and content
Its boundless longings? What to give support
To thy faint heart in all its sinking hours?
Ah, what to smooth the rough decline of life
And light thee through the shadowy vale of death?
Hadst though not cast away the truth of God,
Denied thy Saviour, turned thy back on heaven
And braved the wrath to come from early youth,
In some desponding hour, when self-immured,
Or in some lonely walk o'er bloodless plains
Or heights from which thick ranks of coming waves
Are seen afar, as if from Europe sent
To bear to thee dread visions of the past,
And roar and dash around thy rocky isle
To wake thy conscience from its torpid sleep,
The hope were strong that mem'ry thus beset
Would bring thy crimes in long and black array
To thy astonished view, nor rest permit
Till by omnipotence an entrance wide
Were opened for conviction and remorse
Into each fortified recess within.
How would the generous heart of every land
Rejoice, should penitence yet mark the close
Of thy eventful life, and mercy wash
Thy spirit pure in its all cleansing fount!
How welcome were the tidings that the peace
Of heaven, the fruit of child-like faith and love,
In thy tumultuous bosom had begun
Its gentle reign. How far from hateful, nay
How lovely and how truly great wert thou
On bended knees at thy Redeemer's feet,
Dumb with confusion or with loud lament
O'er thy offences, pleading for his grace,
And bowing to his will with pride subdued.
That were the vict'ry of a noble mind.
Thy triumphs o'er mankind have made thee known,
A vict'ry o'er thyself would make thee great.
The conquest of the world were mean to this,
More than an earthly diadem were thine,
And more than immortality in name.
In all thy might and fame. Now too how changed!
Thy kingdom gone, how art thou driven from men,
From the great world, to spend thy days alone,
To make thee know there is a God that reigns
And gives the crowns of earth to whom he will.
By mad ambition led, how didst thou ride
With streaming colours o'er the restless waves
Of human glory. Now how art thou cast
Upon a cheerless rock, in deep disgrace,
A spectacle and warning to the world;
Thy fortunes the career, thy fate the end
159
How art thou fallen! so low that e'en thy foes
Lose half their indignation at thy crimes
In pity for thy melancholy fate.
Kept in thy rocky tower, thou now art viewed
With safety, though with trembling, as long known
The tiger that had ravaged half the world.
The wand'rers of the sea who pass thine isle
And mark the spot, how small, and wild, and lone,
With wagging head and taunting lips inquire,
Is this the man that caused the earth to quake?
That burnt her cities, laid her countries waste,
And shook her thrones and kingdoms to the dust?
Where now the objects of thy heart's delight,
Where now the pomp of armies in array,
The waving banners and the dazzling arms,
The trumpet's clang, the neighing of fierce steeds,
The din of martial bands, the word, the shout,
That rouse and fire and madden all the soul
While panting for the onset, or amidst
The heat of battle? Where the victory proud,
The rattling of thy furious chariot wheels
O'er crumbling crowns and plains of bleaching bones,
The spoil of nations? the triumphal train?
The acclamation of saluting crowds,
And all the ensigns of renown and pow'r?
Gone like the pageants of a maniac's brain.
Poor solitary man, what hast thou more,
What hast thou left congenial to thy mind
To busy its dread workings, and content
Its boundless longings? What to give support
To thy faint heart in all its sinking hours?
Ah, what to smooth the rough decline of life
And light thee through the shadowy vale of death?
Hadst though not cast away the truth of God,
Denied thy Saviour, turned thy back on heaven
And braved the wrath to come from early youth,
In some desponding hour, when self-immured,
160
Or heights from which thick ranks of coming waves
Are seen afar, as if from Europe sent
To bear to thee dread visions of the past,
And roar and dash around thy rocky isle
To wake thy conscience from its torpid sleep,
The hope were strong that mem'ry thus beset
Would bring thy crimes in long and black array
To thy astonished view, nor rest permit
Till by omnipotence an entrance wide
Were opened for conviction and remorse
Into each fortified recess within.
How would the generous heart of every land
Rejoice, should penitence yet mark the close
Of thy eventful life, and mercy wash
Thy spirit pure in its all cleansing fount!
How welcome were the tidings that the peace
Of heaven, the fruit of child-like faith and love,
In thy tumultuous bosom had begun
Its gentle reign. How far from hateful, nay
How lovely and how truly great wert thou
On bended knees at thy Redeemer's feet,
Dumb with confusion or with loud lament
O'er thy offences, pleading for his grace,
And bowing to his will with pride subdued.
That were the vict'ry of a noble mind.
Thy triumphs o'er mankind have made thee known,
A vict'ry o'er thyself would make thee great.
The conquest of the world were mean to this,
More than an earthly diadem were thine,
And more than immortality in name.
But if no season of relenting come
With hope attendant, one will come at last
Fraught with despair eternal and intense.
Though thou hast peopled the dark realms of death
These many years with an unfeeling heart,
A scene is coming which will make thee feel.
With all thy hardihood thou canst not stand
Unmoved a moment, when before the bar
Of stern impartial justice, millions slain
By thy ambition, cut off unprepared
And sent to judgment, millions more bereaved,
All cry for vengeance on thy single head.
Then shall past glory but increase thy shame.
Then wouldst thou gladly into nothing shrink,
Or be the most obscure of all the slaves
That ever crouched and trembled at thy nod.
With hope attendant, one will come at last
Fraught with despair eternal and intense.
Though thou hast peopled the dark realms of death
These many years with an unfeeling heart,
A scene is coming which will make thee feel.
With all thy hardihood thou canst not stand
161
Of stern impartial justice, millions slain
By thy ambition, cut off unprepared
And sent to judgment, millions more bereaved,
All cry for vengeance on thy single head.
Then shall past glory but increase thy shame.
Then wouldst thou gladly into nothing shrink,
Or be the most obscure of all the slaves
That ever crouched and trembled at thy nod.
Among the chief occasions which invite
The patriot, philanthropist and saint
To great exertions, what more loudly calls
On either, than the miserable state
Of Afric's sons in iron bondage held?
Where held in bondage? In what savage land?
Where learning and religion never shed
Their meliorating beams; and where the rights,
The natural rights of man were never known?
In no such land, such corner of the world;
But in the midst of the united realm
Of learning and religion; and where, too,
The natural rights of man are clearly known;
Nay, more, are owned, and made a public boast.
All are born free, and all with equal rights.
So speaks the charter of a nation proud
Of her unequall'd liberties and laws,
While in that nation, shameful to relate,
One man in five is born and dies a slave.
Is this my country? this that happy land,
The wonder and the envy of the world?
O for a mantle to conceal her shame!
But why, when Patriotism cannot hide
The ruin which her guilt will surely bring
If unrepented; and unless the God
Who pour'd his plagues on Egypt till she let
The oppressed go free, and often pours his wrath
In earthquakes and tornadoes on the isles
Of western India, laying waste their fields,
Dashing their mercenary ships ashore,
Tossing the isles themselves like floating wrecks,
And burying towns alive in one wide grave
No sooner ope'd but closed; let judgment pass
For once untasted till the general doom,
Can it go well with us while we retain
This cursed thing? Will not untimely frosts,
Devouring insects, drought, and wind and hail,
Destroy the fruits of ground long till'd in chains?
Will not some daring spirit born to thoughts
Above his beast-like state, find out the truth
That Africans are men; and catching fire
From Freedom's altar raised before his eyes
With incense fuming sweet, in others light
A kindred flame in secret, till a train
Kindled at once, deal death on every side?
Cease then, Columbia, for thy safety cease,
And for thine honour, to proclaim the praise
Of thy fair shores of liberty and joy,
While thrice five hundred thousand wretched slaves
In thine own bosom, start at every word
As meant to mock their woes, and shake their chains,
Thinking defiance which they dare not speak.
Ye sons of Liberty, who rally round
Her standard at her yearly festival,
Flourish the sword and bid the cannon roar
Defiance to all tyrants, shout huzzas
O'er flowing bowls, and with exulting voice
Sing “give us liberty or give us death;”
Your joy is merciless, while its glad sounds
From more than half the land return in groans;
Throw down your banners lifted to the sky,
They will not float on this impoisoned air.
Away with feast and song, come fast and weep—
Away with all defiance and disdain
Of foreign tyrants; humbly mourn our own.
For who are tyrants? they that make men slaves.
No more exult o'er kingdoms of the east
Where not a slave is found, till here are none.
Of more equality no longer boast.
Rail at usurping peers, when ye have shown
That fifty tenants to support a lord,
Is more at war with reason and with Heaven
Than fifty slaves a planter to support
In personal rights and privileges dear
The monarch rises not so far above
The meanest free-born subject of his realm,
As does the master o'er the helpless slave.
With needful food supplied, the slave, say some,
Desires no more, and void of care is blest.
If by kind treatment it be sometimes thus,
What does it prove, but that the man debased
By his condition, knows no higher good
Than what the brute enjoys? And is it just
To shut him from all rational delight
Until he feel no wants but those of sense,
Then call him happy to excuse the crime?
Or is it then no blessing to be free?
And were they fools who struggled to obtain
Our independence—to throw off a yoke
Far less oppressive than the one we bind
On Afric's sable sons? Are they not tax'd?
Yes! to the very blood that warms their veins.
No rights have they, not one for self-defence.
The master may inflict whate'er he will
On this side death! may lash, and maul, and kick,
All which these eyes have seen; may chain and yoke
And if the sufferer but a finger lift
Against the madman to preserve his life,
The law condemns him, friendless and unheard.
Hail land of liberty! Come all ye kings
And tyrants of the world, come near and view
This land of liberty, where men are free
To task, and scourge, and chain their fellow men
At their own pleasure, and without the fear
Of any human bar. What man can plead
That such ill treatment is but seldom seen,
When every master, e'en the most humane,
Rules with the lash, and with the lash must rule:
Slaves can be governed only by the lash.
No obligations bind them, and no fears
Of ought but corporal punishment restrain.
Much more is granted, for their sake and ours
They must be kept in ignorance till freed.
A taste of knowledge would a torment prove,
Like joyful music to the sad in soul;
Or like a view of land beyond the reach
While sinking in the flood. Expand their minds
And they will know their rights; will learn the worth
Of freedom, and up starting from the ground
Will burst their chains and raise our mad'ning cry,
“Or give us liberty or give us death.”
Keep them in ignorance and we are safe;
Press them to earth like brutes, and they will bear
Nor rise against us till the judgment day.
'Tis mockery to soothe whom we oppress.
'Tis insult to attempt to put them off
By mitigating means, to make amends
For loss of liberty—to make them feel,
And make mankind believe, that they are blest.
All short of full deliverance is in vain.
'Twill not suffice to lessen wrongs like theirs:
To soften hardships so severe at best.
No! chains are chains, though half concealed with flowers,
No! Slavery is a tyger, even when it seems
Most like a lamb. Its kindest smiles are frowns,
Its tender mercies cruel as the grave.
It is a monster that cannot be tamed;
Hard as a rock of adamant his heart.
Then will ye play with him as with a bird?
Attempt to lead him with a silken string,
To stroke his bristled mane and gaily pat
His iron scales? Beware lest he despise
Such mock caresses; lest they stir him up
To put forth in a rage, his latent strength.
I will not say religion can do nought
To ease the heavy load of men enslaved
Nor will I say, to teach them sacred truths,
Truths that require submission and content,
Tending to humble not elate the heart,
Will be to plant the seeds of civil war.
Much less would I be thought to intimate
That this is not our duty, or this all.
What then? Because religion is a balm
For every wound, may wounds be multiplied?
Because the martyr triumphed in the flames,
Was it the less a crime to light the fire?
Because religion made its converts yield
Subjection to each ordinance of man,
Even when Nero swam in christian blood,
Was persecution of its horrors stripp'd?
And so, because the slave when taught from Heaven,
May bear the worst in peace, without complaint,
Trusting in Him whose vengeance will repay,
Is slavery no oppression? What if some,
Finding in this strange land the precious pearl
Which they had always wanted in their own,
Will bless forever the once-cursed day
When they were torn from all that men hold dear,
Confined in irons and to bondage doom'd?
Does this afford the shadow of a plea
In our behalf? Or makes it ought the less
Our duty to emancipate the whole?
But when and how may this be safely done?
Done it should be; with safety if it can,
With danger if it must. It ill becomes
Our name to shrink from suffering in our turn,
We who have reaped the profits of their fall
Selfish in all, shall we expect to make
Their rise our gain? Say not they are entail'd
Our sad inheritance, and we must bear
What we lament, but have not power to change.
Lament and bear! Is this the generous plaint
Of charity perplex'd and sorely griev'd?
No, 'tis the plea of avarice, who pays
Her court to charity to still her fears,
While safe possession is the end in view.
But more than calm endurance is our crime,
And more than reaping what our fathers sow'd.
Their very spirit lives, their very sin
In all its horrors, lives in spite of law.
Each year brings thousands o'er the groaning waves
To be sent in by stealth through our wide bounds:
And when discovered, forfeited like goods,
Like them too they are seiz'd and advertis'd
And sold at auction, to complete the crime.
Will not Jehovah visit for such things?
Will he not be aveng'd on such a land?
Go ye, whose feelings custom has not steel'd,
See men to market driv'n like fatten'd herds
There to be sold and parted, friend from friend,
Parted by scourges, yokes or galling chains,
Then judge if slavery is no more our crime,
But our calamity. Go first and view
Fair freedom's temple, while her chosen sons
From her confederated realms are met
To pay their yearly off'rings at her shrine.
Enter and hear the clap of loud applause,
When by some fav'rite voice, declaiming loud,
To crouded aisles and galleries adorn'd
With forms of beauty rang'd in brilliant rows,
This matchless land is blazon'd to the stars
For liberty, equality, and joy:
Then go and view a drove of human souls,
Immortal beings for whom Jesus died,
To market driv'n, and by their fellow men
Whose blackness lies far deeper than their skin.
Go listen to the lashes and the shrieks
That mingling rend the air, while clinging friends
Husband and wife, the mother and the child,
By various purchasers are torn apart
And doom'd to different regions of the land,
Never to see each other's faces more;
Never to hear by letter or report
Of other's welfare dearer than their own;
Never to know their death, till after years
'Tis learnt by meeting them beyond the grave.
O proud Columbia, hide thy towering head
Low in the dust, in shame and penitence,
Till from thy robes be wash'd the stain of blood;
Then like a goddess rising from the sea,
Then rising in thy glory, prove thyself
“The queen of earth, the daughter of the skies.”
I see thy glory with prophetic eye,
I see thee with thy crown of many stars
On thy fair head, and clothed in spotless robes,
Moving in state toward the Atlantic shore:
With one hand casting to the waves below
The last of all thy slave-oppressing chains,
And with the other holding to thy breast
The book of God. I hear the shouts of joy
That ring from end to end of thy domain.
I hear the sounds prolong'd from wave to wave
And now they strike and echo on the coast
Of joyful Africa. The time will come—
Sure as the groans of earth shall all be lost
In the hosannas of millennial bliss—
The time will come when slavery shall cease,
When this whole nation, like that favour'd part
Northward and eastward stretching from the shores
Of Susquehannah, shall enjoy the smiles
Of freedom, equal, common, as the air.
At such a prospect, who, that has a heart
With one remaining spark of generous fire,
Feels not an inward glowing of delight?
Who that can pray, will cease to importune
The Lord of all to hasten the event.
From those who purchase of their own accord
The blood and sinews of their fellow men,
No pity is expected; but from them
On whom the sad possession is entail'd
Without the power to set the pris'ners free,
At least from all the pious and humane,
Much may be hoped in aid of every plan
For hastening on the day of full release.
These join'd with those whose blessing 'tis to live
Among the hills and vallies of the north,
“Where all born free inherit equal rights,”
Will form a host not armed, but inspir'd
By reason, right, humanity and Heav'n,
To undertake and to effect the work
Of liberating brethren from their chains.
O for some Wilberforce to lead the van!
To rise and say, “It must and shall be done;”
To rise the hundredth time, unaw'd by frowns,
Undamp'd by failures, and repeat the same,
Till vict'ry crown him with a fairer wreath
Than hero ever won or poet feign'd.
The patriot, philanthropist and saint
To great exertions, what more loudly calls
On either, than the miserable state
Of Afric's sons in iron bondage held?
Where held in bondage? In what savage land?
Where learning and religion never shed
Their meliorating beams; and where the rights,
The natural rights of man were never known?
In no such land, such corner of the world;
But in the midst of the united realm
Of learning and religion; and where, too,
The natural rights of man are clearly known;
Nay, more, are owned, and made a public boast.
All are born free, and all with equal rights.
So speaks the charter of a nation proud
Of her unequall'd liberties and laws,
While in that nation, shameful to relate,
One man in five is born and dies a slave.
Is this my country? this that happy land,
The wonder and the envy of the world?
O for a mantle to conceal her shame!
But why, when Patriotism cannot hide
The ruin which her guilt will surely bring
If unrepented; and unless the God
Who pour'd his plagues on Egypt till she let
162
In earthquakes and tornadoes on the isles
Of western India, laying waste their fields,
Dashing their mercenary ships ashore,
Tossing the isles themselves like floating wrecks,
And burying towns alive in one wide grave
No sooner ope'd but closed; let judgment pass
For once untasted till the general doom,
Can it go well with us while we retain
This cursed thing? Will not untimely frosts,
Devouring insects, drought, and wind and hail,
Destroy the fruits of ground long till'd in chains?
Will not some daring spirit born to thoughts
Above his beast-like state, find out the truth
That Africans are men; and catching fire
From Freedom's altar raised before his eyes
With incense fuming sweet, in others light
A kindred flame in secret, till a train
Kindled at once, deal death on every side?
Cease then, Columbia, for thy safety cease,
And for thine honour, to proclaim the praise
Of thy fair shores of liberty and joy,
While thrice five hundred thousand wretched slaves
In thine own bosom, start at every word
As meant to mock their woes, and shake their chains,
Thinking defiance which they dare not speak.
Ye sons of Liberty, who rally round
Her standard at her yearly festival,
Flourish the sword and bid the cannon roar
Defiance to all tyrants, shout huzzas
O'er flowing bowls, and with exulting voice
Sing “give us liberty or give us death;”
Your joy is merciless, while its glad sounds
From more than half the land return in groans;
Throw down your banners lifted to the sky,
They will not float on this impoisoned air.
Away with feast and song, come fast and weep—
Away with all defiance and disdain
163
For who are tyrants? they that make men slaves.
No more exult o'er kingdoms of the east
Where not a slave is found, till here are none.
Of more equality no longer boast.
Rail at usurping peers, when ye have shown
That fifty tenants to support a lord,
Is more at war with reason and with Heaven
Than fifty slaves a planter to support
In personal rights and privileges dear
The monarch rises not so far above
The meanest free-born subject of his realm,
As does the master o'er the helpless slave.
With needful food supplied, the slave, say some,
Desires no more, and void of care is blest.
If by kind treatment it be sometimes thus,
What does it prove, but that the man debased
By his condition, knows no higher good
Than what the brute enjoys? And is it just
To shut him from all rational delight
Until he feel no wants but those of sense,
Then call him happy to excuse the crime?
Or is it then no blessing to be free?
And were they fools who struggled to obtain
Our independence—to throw off a yoke
Far less oppressive than the one we bind
On Afric's sable sons? Are they not tax'd?
Yes! to the very blood that warms their veins.
No rights have they, not one for self-defence.
The master may inflict whate'er he will
On this side death! may lash, and maul, and kick,
All which these eyes have seen; may chain and yoke
And if the sufferer but a finger lift
Against the madman to preserve his life,
The law condemns him, friendless and unheard.
Hail land of liberty! Come all ye kings
And tyrants of the world, come near and view
This land of liberty, where men are free
164
At their own pleasure, and without the fear
Of any human bar. What man can plead
That such ill treatment is but seldom seen,
When every master, e'en the most humane,
Rules with the lash, and with the lash must rule:
Slaves can be governed only by the lash.
No obligations bind them, and no fears
Of ought but corporal punishment restrain.
Much more is granted, for their sake and ours
They must be kept in ignorance till freed.
A taste of knowledge would a torment prove,
Like joyful music to the sad in soul;
Or like a view of land beyond the reach
While sinking in the flood. Expand their minds
And they will know their rights; will learn the worth
Of freedom, and up starting from the ground
Will burst their chains and raise our mad'ning cry,
“Or give us liberty or give us death.”
Keep them in ignorance and we are safe;
Press them to earth like brutes, and they will bear
Nor rise against us till the judgment day.
'Tis mockery to soothe whom we oppress.
'Tis insult to attempt to put them off
By mitigating means, to make amends
For loss of liberty—to make them feel,
And make mankind believe, that they are blest.
All short of full deliverance is in vain.
'Twill not suffice to lessen wrongs like theirs:
To soften hardships so severe at best.
No! chains are chains, though half concealed with flowers,
No! Slavery is a tyger, even when it seems
Most like a lamb. Its kindest smiles are frowns,
Its tender mercies cruel as the grave.
It is a monster that cannot be tamed;
Hard as a rock of adamant his heart.
Then will ye play with him as with a bird?
Attempt to lead him with a silken string,
165
His iron scales? Beware lest he despise
Such mock caresses; lest they stir him up
To put forth in a rage, his latent strength.
I will not say religion can do nought
To ease the heavy load of men enslaved
Nor will I say, to teach them sacred truths,
Truths that require submission and content,
Tending to humble not elate the heart,
Will be to plant the seeds of civil war.
Much less would I be thought to intimate
That this is not our duty, or this all.
What then? Because religion is a balm
For every wound, may wounds be multiplied?
Because the martyr triumphed in the flames,
Was it the less a crime to light the fire?
Because religion made its converts yield
Subjection to each ordinance of man,
Even when Nero swam in christian blood,
Was persecution of its horrors stripp'd?
And so, because the slave when taught from Heaven,
May bear the worst in peace, without complaint,
Trusting in Him whose vengeance will repay,
Is slavery no oppression? What if some,
Finding in this strange land the precious pearl
Which they had always wanted in their own,
Will bless forever the once-cursed day
When they were torn from all that men hold dear,
Confined in irons and to bondage doom'd?
Does this afford the shadow of a plea
In our behalf? Or makes it ought the less
Our duty to emancipate the whole?
But when and how may this be safely done?
Done it should be; with safety if it can,
With danger if it must. It ill becomes
Our name to shrink from suffering in our turn,
We who have reaped the profits of their fall
Selfish in all, shall we expect to make
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Our sad inheritance, and we must bear
What we lament, but have not power to change.
Lament and bear! Is this the generous plaint
Of charity perplex'd and sorely griev'd?
No, 'tis the plea of avarice, who pays
Her court to charity to still her fears,
While safe possession is the end in view.
But more than calm endurance is our crime,
And more than reaping what our fathers sow'd.
Their very spirit lives, their very sin
In all its horrors, lives in spite of law.
Each year brings thousands o'er the groaning waves
To be sent in by stealth through our wide bounds:
And when discovered, forfeited like goods,
Like them too they are seiz'd and advertis'd
And sold at auction, to complete the crime.
Will not Jehovah visit for such things?
Will he not be aveng'd on such a land?
Go ye, whose feelings custom has not steel'd,
See men to market driv'n like fatten'd herds
There to be sold and parted, friend from friend,
Parted by scourges, yokes or galling chains,
Then judge if slavery is no more our crime,
But our calamity. Go first and view
Fair freedom's temple, while her chosen sons
From her confederated realms are met
To pay their yearly off'rings at her shrine.
Enter and hear the clap of loud applause,
When by some fav'rite voice, declaiming loud,
To crouded aisles and galleries adorn'd
With forms of beauty rang'd in brilliant rows,
This matchless land is blazon'd to the stars
For liberty, equality, and joy:
Then go and view a drove of human souls,
Immortal beings for whom Jesus died,
To market driv'n, and by their fellow men
Whose blackness lies far deeper than their skin.
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That mingling rend the air, while clinging friends
Husband and wife, the mother and the child,
By various purchasers are torn apart
And doom'd to different regions of the land,
Never to see each other's faces more;
Never to hear by letter or report
Of other's welfare dearer than their own;
Never to know their death, till after years
'Tis learnt by meeting them beyond the grave.
O proud Columbia, hide thy towering head
Low in the dust, in shame and penitence,
Till from thy robes be wash'd the stain of blood;
Then like a goddess rising from the sea,
Then rising in thy glory, prove thyself
“The queen of earth, the daughter of the skies.”
I see thy glory with prophetic eye,
I see thee with thy crown of many stars
On thy fair head, and clothed in spotless robes,
Moving in state toward the Atlantic shore:
With one hand casting to the waves below
The last of all thy slave-oppressing chains,
And with the other holding to thy breast
The book of God. I hear the shouts of joy
That ring from end to end of thy domain.
I hear the sounds prolong'd from wave to wave
And now they strike and echo on the coast
Of joyful Africa. The time will come—
Sure as the groans of earth shall all be lost
In the hosannas of millennial bliss—
The time will come when slavery shall cease,
When this whole nation, like that favour'd part
Northward and eastward stretching from the shores
Of Susquehannah, shall enjoy the smiles
Of freedom, equal, common, as the air.
At such a prospect, who, that has a heart
With one remaining spark of generous fire,
Feels not an inward glowing of delight?
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The Lord of all to hasten the event.
From those who purchase of their own accord
The blood and sinews of their fellow men,
No pity is expected; but from them
On whom the sad possession is entail'd
Without the power to set the pris'ners free,
At least from all the pious and humane,
Much may be hoped in aid of every plan
For hastening on the day of full release.
These join'd with those whose blessing 'tis to live
Among the hills and vallies of the north,
“Where all born free inherit equal rights,”
Will form a host not armed, but inspir'd
By reason, right, humanity and Heav'n,
To undertake and to effect the work
Of liberating brethren from their chains.
O for some Wilberforce to lead the van!
To rise and say, “It must and shall be done;”
To rise the hundredth time, unaw'd by frowns,
Undamp'd by failures, and repeat the same,
Till vict'ry crown him with a fairer wreath
Than hero ever won or poet feign'd.
The wrongs of Africa must be redress'd
Extensive as her injuries, her claims
For compensation are upon the world.
A handful honoured with the christian name,
Buried in dungeons in the savage coast
Of Barbary, have summon'd from afar
The fleets of mighty nations to their aid.
'Twere noble, though but just, in nations once
Inhumanly employ'd in forging chains
For unoffending Africa, to draw
A line of ships, to build therewith a wall
Around her, to defend her helpless shores
From ruffian out-laws; to explore the holds
Of all suspected ships, whatever flag
May dance on high, to cover what's below;
And from these loathsome dungeons, floating graves,
To raise to life, to light and liberty,
The pining, dying captives there confin'd,
Bound down in irons, and to hardships doom'd
That ending in the loss of half their lives,
Thus rob the murderers before they reach
Their destin'd port. In that tremendous day
When from her vast unfathomable depth
The opening sea shall yield her rising dead;
Oh! what a host, in one continuous line,
Marking to gazing worlds the wonted course
Of this infernal traffic o'er the main,
Through floods divided by the trumpet's sound,
Like that divided by the sacred rod
Of Israel's leader, shall ascend to fill
The persecuting nations with dismay.
Then let the nations tremble and reform.
Let those who have begun, pursue the work
Of restitution, till no slave be found.
And let my country be the first to pay
The full arrears of justice, still the due
Of injured Africa, that at the bar
Of final retribution, she may stand
The first forgiven, or the last condemn'd.
Extensive as her injuries, her claims
For compensation are upon the world.
A handful honoured with the christian name,
Buried in dungeons in the savage coast
Of Barbary, have summon'd from afar
The fleets of mighty nations to their aid.
'Twere noble, though but just, in nations once
Inhumanly employ'd in forging chains
For unoffending Africa, to draw
A line of ships, to build therewith a wall
Around her, to defend her helpless shores
From ruffian out-laws; to explore the holds
Of all suspected ships, whatever flag
May dance on high, to cover what's below;
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To raise to life, to light and liberty,
The pining, dying captives there confin'd,
Bound down in irons, and to hardships doom'd
That ending in the loss of half their lives,
Thus rob the murderers before they reach
Their destin'd port. In that tremendous day
When from her vast unfathomable depth
The opening sea shall yield her rising dead;
Oh! what a host, in one continuous line,
Marking to gazing worlds the wonted course
Of this infernal traffic o'er the main,
Through floods divided by the trumpet's sound,
Like that divided by the sacred rod
Of Israel's leader, shall ascend to fill
The persecuting nations with dismay.
Then let the nations tremble and reform.
Let those who have begun, pursue the work
Of restitution, till no slave be found.
And let my country be the first to pay
The full arrears of justice, still the due
Of injured Africa, that at the bar
Of final retribution, she may stand
The first forgiven, or the last condemn'd.
| Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox . | |