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Mary Anne Rawson's The Bow in the Cloud (1834): A Scholarly Edition

Barton, Bernard

Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/47543211

Born: 1784

Died: 1849

Faith: Quaker

Note: Bernard Barton was a Quaker poet who was best known for The Convict's Appeal (1818),
in which he protested against the death penalty and the severity of the criminal code.

Published: The Starting-Post; or, Clarkson at Wades-Mill, A Negro-Mother's Cradle-Song, A Christian Negro's Thanks and Prayer, The Goal; or, Clarkson in Old Age

This page is referenced by:

The Goal; or, Clarkson in Old Age, by Bernard Barton

Near half a century hath flown;
  That way-side wanderer now
A venerable sage has grown,
  With years traced on his brow.

More bent in form, more dim of eye,
  More faltering in his pace;
But time has stamped in dignity,
  More than it reft of grace.

And joy is his, age cannot chill,
  Memories it need not shun;
The lone enthusiast of Wades-Mill
  His glorious goal hath won!

Not vainly has he watched the ark
  Wherein his hopes were shrined,
Nor vainly fanned fair Freedom's spark
  In many a kindling mind.

At times, indeed, those hopes might seem
  Lost in the whelming wave;
That spark--a faintly, struggling gleam--
  Quenched to the hapless slave.

Anon the dove, with weary wing,
  Her olive-branch would bear;
A sign to which his hopes might cling
  In hours of anxious care.

The bow of promise has come forth;
  It stands as erst it stood,
When the old land-marks of the earth
  Emerged above the flood!

And Christian states have owned His right,
  Who bade the waves recede,
As Freedom's champions, in His might,
  For Afric rose to plead.

Well may the vet'ran of that band,
  In life's declining days,
Offer, with lifted heart and hand,
  Thanksgiving, glory, praise!

His name, with those of his compeers,
  Have travelled earth's wide round;
And grateful hearts, and listening ears,
  Have hailed their welcome sound.

His toils are o'er, his part is done;
  The Captive is set free;
But, Europe, though his goal be won,
  Much yet devolves on thee.

The bondage that made Afric vile
  Can ne'er be wrapt in night,
Until her barren wastes shall smile
  Beneath the Gospel's light.

'Till where the Scourge created fear,
  The Cross shall waken love,
And Afric's children altars rear
  To Him who reigns above!

Bernard Barton.

finis.
A Christian Negro's Thanks and Prayer, by Bernard Barton

O Father of the human race!
The white, the black, the bond, the free;
Thanks for thy gift of heavenly grace,
Vouchsafed, through Jesus Christ, to me.

This, 'mid oppression's every wrong,
Has borne my sinking spirit up;
Made sorrow joyful, -- weakness strong,
And sweetened Slavery's bitter cup.

Hath not a Saviour's dying hour
Made e'en the yoke of thraldom light?
Hath not thy Holy Spirit's power
Made bondage freedom; -- darkness bright?

Thanks, then, O Father! for the gift,
Which through thy Gospel Thou hast given;
Which thus from bonds and earth can lift
The soul to liberty and Heaven.

But not the less I mourn THEIR shame,
Who, mindless of Thy gracious will,
Call on a Father's -- Saviour's name,
Yet keep their brethren bondsmen still!

Forgive them, Lord! for Jesus' sake;
And since THE SLAVE Thou hast unbound, --
The chains which bind the OPPRESSOR -- break,
And be Thy love's last triumph crowned!

Bernard Barton

Woodbridge,
4th of 5th Mo. 1826.
The Starting-Post; or, Clarkson at Wades-Mill, by Bernard Barton

"Coming in sight of Wades-Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the road-side, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner, I reached home. This was in the summer of 1785."

Clarkson's History of the Abolition, Vol. I. p. 210.

A wanderer by the road-way side,
Where leafy tall trees grow,
Casting their branching shadows wide,
Sits on the turf below.

Though rich the landscape, hill, and plain,
Before him there out-spread ;
One hand holds fast his bridle-rein,
One props his thoughtful head.

The flush of youth is on his brow,
Its fire is in his eye;
And yet the first is pensive now,
The latter nought can spy.

Does proud Ambition's fitful gleam
Light up his soul within?
Or fond Affection's gentler dream
Prompt him Love's bliss to win?

These are forgotten, or unknown :
For, o'er the Atlantic main,
His ear has caught the captive's groan,
Has heard his clanking chain.

Nor less from Afric's land afar,
Borne by the billowy waves,
The hideous din of sordid War,
The shrieks of kidnapped slaves.

The iron of that galling yoke
Has entered in his soul!
How shall Power's tyrant spell be broke?
The sick at heart made whole?

Who, e'en on Albion's far-famed Isle,
Where Freedom gives her laws,
Nobly forgetting self the while,
Shall live but for her cause?

Who, the Apostle of her Creed,
Shall journey to and fro,
Her universal rights to plead,
And Slavery overthrow?

"Thou art the man!" the Prophet cried;
The awe-struck Monarch heard;
And, while his heart with anguish sighed,
Compunction's depths were stirred.

As clear, as vivid the appeal
To Freedom's Champion given:
And God himself hath set his seal,
The message was from Heaven!

Bernard Barton.
A Negro-Mother's Cradle-Song, by Bernard Barton

Sleep, my child! and might the prayer
Of thy mother's dark despair
Be accepted for thy sake,-
'Twere that thou no more shouldst wake,

Though a mother's love be mine,
And a daughter's fondness thine,
Yet, for thee, a parent's breath
Craves the boon of early death.

Worse to live a helpless slave,
Than to fill an early grave;
Better far the silent tomb,
Than the captive's hopeless doom.

White man's cruelty and lust
Cannot harm the lifeless dust;
Powerless the oppressor's rod,
Brandished o'er a senseless clod.

Ruthless lash, and galling chain,
Ceaseless tasks-performed with pain,
Nights of sorrow, days of toil--
These have made my life their spoil.

Such, with life, must be thy lot;
Dying-thou shalt know them not;-
O, be thine, all fetters breaking,
Sleep that knows on earth no waking!

Bernard Barton
Woodbridge,

4th of 6th Mo. 1826.

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