A Word for the Slave, by John Holland
How beautiful -- how glorious is the sun,
Shining and warming with meridian strength!
I love to gaze upon him, he's a type
Of Liberty -- how dear to him that's Free!
-- How proudly, how sublimely, do the waves
Of the great ocean roll upon his surface,
Dashing on rock and beach all uncontrolled!
The waves of ocean in their loudest dash,
But echo independence to the Free.
How loudly, and how swiftly do the winds
Sweep through the heavens, and brush the verdured earth;
And none but HE who holds them in his fist
Can stay their blowing or compel their course:
The winds, unmanacled in their career,
Are but the type of freedom to the Free.
Hail, happy, holy, heaven-favoured isle!
Whose sons, entrusted with the rights of men,
Shew to the world what men were made to be:
Whose sons, entrusted with the gospel word,
Preach to the world what Christians ought to do.
To them, the sun not more unfettered moves
In luminous glory on his mid-day track,
Than they, in chartered rights, inviolate,
Think, speak, and act, as Heaven ordained they should.
To them, the waves that dash upon our shores
Sound not more loudly the accordant anthem
Of their unbridled and mysterious movement,
Than do the sons of this illustrious isle,
Chant the loud song of freedom -- and are free.
Nor do the winds more unrestrained blow by,
Than Britain's unimpoverished liberty
Is echoed through the world, where'er her sons
Can shew the passport of their birthright pure.
-- I am a Briton, and my heart exults
Whene'er I think upon these proud distinctions;
I am a Christian, and my heart is humbled
When I reflect on my ingratitude.
But, ah! (and this the sadness of my theme)
There is a blot, a foul and sickening blot,
On this fair picture of our reputation.
Oh! there are those -- men like ourselves in form;
Men like ourselves in physical exploit;
Men like ourselves in nature and complaint;
Men like ourselves in sin's primeval taint;
And, oh! like us, born to the destinies
Of endless life or death -- of Heaven or Hell:
Oh! there are such -- our brethren in humanity,
Yea, and our fellow-subjects -- that are slaves!
To them, the sun, if they dare look upon him,
Is a forbidden emblem; or at best,
The scorching symbol of their fiery trials.
To them, the waves sound not Britannia's song
Of rule and freedom; they but seem to roll
Hither with groans of bondage to the West,
Or back for other victims from afar.
To him, the winds that whistle joy elsewhere
Sound not the proud memento -- thou art free.
What is the Slave? and what are Slavery's pangs?
Think, if thou canst -- think -- for thou canst not feel:
Think upon slavery -- think upon thyself --
Think on the slave -- think on his cruel wrongs --
Think on thy state -- thy best, thy proudest rights;
Then ask thyself -- Who hath the difference made?
Wherefore his curse, and thy prerogative?
And what canst thou, to bless, to make him free?
Art thou a Man? Oh! think upon the Slave;
And if there is a fibre of thy heart
That vibrates in Humanity's best cause,
Oh! never, never may its tremors cease,
Till thou hast pleaded with sublime success,
Or spent thy life in pleading for his rights,
Whom cursed gold and sordid avarice bribes,
To brand with impotence and bind with chains.
Art thou a Patriot? think, oh! think
Upon that cruel and ungracious wrong,
Which brings upon thy country from the West
The blood of slavery and the bitter curse.
The oppressed and the oppressor on one soil
May live and hate -- and in one grave may lie:
But both -- or living in their mutual hate,
Or dead in their forgetfulness -- shall rise
And speak a fearful language in our land,
Blaming the patriot for this horrid crime.
Art thou a Christian? dost thou claim to love
The universal brotherhood of man?
Oh! think upon the Slave -- what has he done,
To be thus trampled on, despised, proscribed,
Cast out from mercy, manacled, and bruised?
What has he done, to forfeit thy good-will,
To lose his interest in thy daily prayers,
To be thy beast of burthen -- to be less
Than thy co-equal in the rights of life,
To live, to die, to be esteemed a slave?
Oh! deign for once to honour thy estate,
And weigh for one short hour the Negro's claims
Upon thy thoughts, thy heart, thy influence:
What canst thou do? Oh! thou canst plead his cause
In argument with men -- in prayer with God --
In conscience with thyself; -- nor ever cease
To feel and plead, till Slavery and its guilt,
In final consummation, shall be swept
From every spot where British influence reigns;
And every man, that feels himself a man,
Scorn that worst degradation of his race,
To buy, or sell, or own a man his slave.
But not alone to man's imperious sex
Belongs this argument of high import,
As if forensic all its attributes.
Oh! there are female slaves! and thrice depressed --
And in their degradation low indeed
Are these, most dear and exquisitely formed
Of all God's works on earth, sunk when enslaved.
They live, they feel, they love, they think, they die:
They live -- alas! what is their sum of life,
But misery through existence deepliest wrought?
They feel -- and, oh! how exquisite the pang,
Allied to sensibilities which slaves --
Which even slaves themselves may often know.
They love -- alas! that their affections free
Should be outraged, beyond what privileged brutes,
Enjoying nature's suffrage, e'er endure.
They think -- nor deem their thoughts may not surpass
(However stinted) their's, the maudlin souls,
Which, loathsome as the slimy brood of earth,
Crawl, feed, and fatten, on their human prey.
They die -- and find that liberty in death
Which Heaven alike grants to the slave and free:
The only privilege which man from man,
(As human misery's last desperate hope)
Can neither change, arrest, nor filch away.
-- O ye of Womankind! of English birth,
Fair partners in our bliss:-- by what dear names
Soever ye be called this hour on earth:
Wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, lovers, think,
Oh! think on those, the thousands of your sex,
Who at this moment bear these generous titles,
Each badged and branded with the blotch of slave!
Oh! think on these, and plead their crying cause,
The cause of Right, Humanity, and Heaven.
-- Yes, plead the Negro's cause, plead for the Slave:
Your prayers with God, your importunities
With man -- they may, they must prevail,
To crown his righteous cause, and win his ransom.
Then shall his thanks bring blessings on your heads;
His free-born offspring, too, shall bless your children:
And all rejoicing, shall together raise
An everlasting monument, inscribed
With Negro gratitude and British fame.
Hail, hail auspicious era! long foretold,
By Holy Writ and man's prophetic hopes:
When shall no sound be heard -- no song be sung,
But sounds of freedom and salvation's songs:
When man no more shall be the curse of man,
But, blest by Heaven himself, shall bless his fellows
With all the bounteous rights and charities
Of that pure love which Christ hath taught to man.
Then shall be heard no more the oppressor's vaunt,
Nor its sad echo, the oppressed one's wail:
The enslaved and the enslaver shall embrace, --
Both shall be free: -- this, from the shackles dire
Which bind his limbs and manacle his mind;
That, from the guilty and still heavier chain,
Which binds his soul to torment. Then shall men
In one harmonious and fraternal league,
Achieve the consummation of such bliss
As earth hath yet to witness: when pure ends,
By purest measures, all mankind shall move
To Freedom, Friendship, Equity, and Love.
John Holland.
Sheffield Park.