Howitt, Mary Botham
1 2024-09-13T16:24:25+00:00 Christopher Ohge 67a4fbaba4797c94aa865988788fca89b5c37616 1 4 Person record for Mary Botham Howitt plain 2024-09-13T16:30:23+00:00 Christopher Ohge 67a4fbaba4797c94aa865988788fca89b5c37616Howitt, Mary Botham
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/42648131Born: 1799
Died: 1888
Faith: Quaker
Note: Best known for her children's poem 'The Spider and the Fly' (1829), Howitt also painted
and translated Hans Christian Anderson.
This page is referenced by:
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Visions of Slavery, by Mary Howitt
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Poem by Mary Howitt
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"Many groans arise from dying men which we hear not.
"Many cries are uttered by widows and fatherless children which reach not our ears.
"Many cheeks are wet with tears, and faces sad with unutterable grief, which we see not.
"Cruel tyranny is encouraged. The hands of robbers are strengthened, and thousands reduced to the most abject slavery who never injured us.
"Were we for the term of one year only to be eye-witnesses to what paaseth in getting these slaves; -- were the blood which is shed to be sprinkled on our garments; -- were the poor captives, bound with thongs, heavy-laden with elephants' teeth, to pass before our eyes on their way to the sea; -- were their bitter lamentations, day after day, to ring in our ears, and their mournful cries in the night to hinder us from sleeping; -- were we to hear the sound of the tumult, when the slaves on board the ships attempt to kill the English, and behold the issue of these bloody conflicts -- what pious man could be a witness to these things, and see a trade carried on in this manner, without feeling deeply affected with sorrow?"
John Woolman's Journal.
----
I.
I have had visions of dismay,
Of guilt and agony and fear,
Of dark deeds which ne'er saw the day,
That men would shrink to hear;
I have seen war come sweeping o'er
A land, with fire, and sword, and chain;
And all her sons lie heaped in gore
Upon the battle plain;--
II.
And heard how woman's terror broke
Forth in her frantic midnight cries,
When first the mighty city's smoke
Burst blackening to the skies:
I've seen the clinging infant slain
Before its kneeling mother's face,
And guilty deed, and bloody stain
Within the holy place.
III.
I've seen the loathsome pestilence
Through a vast city stalk in gloom;
And each night thousands carried thence
Into a common tomb;
When man cared not for death or life,
Nor mothers o'er their children wept,
And foe met foe, yet knew no strife,
For love and hatred slept.
IV.
I have had visions of the wave,
Of night-storm, mutiny, and wreck;
Seen dead men to their nameless grave,
Lowered slowly from the deck:
The loved of many hearts laid low
Within the ocean's boiling foam;
And old men saved through fight and woe,
Whom none might welcome home.
V.
Alas! alas! of broken heart
I have had knowledge, secret pain,
Remorse and fear, the soul-sick smart,
And the damp dungeon's chain:
Through grief my spirit has been led,
Though pain and sorrow to the grave;
But ne'er came aught of crime and dread,
Like visions of the slave.
VI.
I saw the curs'd ship which did bear
For freight a thousand slaves away,
And breathed the hot and putrid air
Of darkness where they lay;
I heard their fearful groans arise,
The curse, the lash, the clanking chain;
Nor have their loud and frenzied cries,
From that day left my brain.
VII.
I saw them, mother torn from child,
Love's holy bonds asunder riven;
Beheld them kneel, and heard their wild
And mournful prayer to Heaven:
I saw the white man standing by,
Unmoved, with cold unpitying breast,
A laughing scorn was in his eye,
Upon his lips a jest.
VIII.
Then in my soul's indignant might,
I cried, Great God, from Heaven look down!
Even then rose cries of strange affright,
As from a captured town;
God's angel was sent forth again,
Another sinful race to smite,
Even as was the Egyptian slain
Yet spared the Israelite.
IX.
Then came contagion like a flood,
Sweeping its thousands to the grave;
But all unmoved the Negro stood,
Heaven-guarded from its wave.
Then the white mother hung and wept
In anguish o'er her first-born dead;
The negro babe and mother slept
Unharmed, secure from dread.
X.
But youths and maids on every hand
Like frost-nipped flowers were borne away,
Yet did the aged negro stand
To gaze upon their clay:
When bent the white man o'er the grave
Where love and hope and friend was laid;
The avenging terror left the slave
Untouched and undismayed.
XI.
I saw it, and I bent my knee
In confidence that God was just;
Nor vain the prayer that misery
Breathed to Him from the dust.
I saw it, and my faith sprung up
Assured that God was strong to save;
And from His holy Heaven would stoop
To raise the fallen slave.
Mary Howitt.
Nottingham. -
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The Negro-Mother, by Mary Howitt
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Poem by Mary Howitt
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I thank my God and yours, my blessed ones,
That you were not born slaves; I'll tell you how
A little negro babe grew sick and died
Without its mother near it.
––She laid him down-and as a bird
Struck with a mortal dart, she reeled,
Yet dared not look again,––she beard
The last, long summons to the field.
She laid him down,––the only one,
Her hope, her love dwelt fondly on.
The only heart that hers had met
With joy, and turned from with regret.
A golden link in slavery's chain,
The manna on life's desert plain,
Which, through the weary day and night,
Made slumber bliss, and labour light.
All pain was hers the slave could know,
Hard toil and insult, taunt and blow;
Yet had her bright-eyed negro child,
Almost to slavery reconciled
Her spirit, for his smiles could bring
Lost pleasures to her soul, and bliss
From out his love burst, like a spring,
That gladdens the parched wilderness.
And toiling 'neath the scorching sun,
She thought but how, when day was done,
Sitting beside the plantain tree,
Clasping his little playful band,
Or joining in his thoughtless glee,
The mother's fondness might expand;
And, thrilling like a finer sense,
Be for all pain a recompence.
––A burning fever came at length,
And bowed his frame, consumed his strength;
And wild throbs of delirious pain
Filled with alarms his infant brain.
He clasped his mother's neck and prayed,
Madly and mournfully, for aid.
But vain his prayer,––she might not stay
To watch beside him through the day.
'Twas harvest-time, when she must bear
Of toil and task, a heavier share,
So, sleepless through the night, she sat
Watching beside her infant's mat,
And with untiring love,
Bent o'er him,––soothed and wiled away
The fears that made his brain a prey;
And bathed his brow, and strove
To please him with each thing she knew
He loved when he was strong;
The tale that oft his wonder drew,
His favourite sport and song.
To lay his little cheek to hers,
And his burning breath to feel,
To hear the feeble plaint that stirs
The heartstrings like love's last appeal.
––But day was up-the toil begun––
And she must go forth with her fettered race.
What heeds the white man, though her son
Be tom from her embrace,
And left to die, of deaths the worst,
In agonies of burning thirst?
What is a negro-infant's sorrow
To him?––a mother's wild distress;
Her groan of utter wretchedness,
Or look of frenzied horror?––
She must away to till the bane
Of her dark race, the blood-nursed cane.
So she laid him down, and forth she went
With a mother's outraged feelings wild,
And as the fiery sunbeams spent
Her frame, not of the scorching ray
She thought, but only how the day,
Hour after hour, might wear away
With her poor abandoned child.
All day she toiled––at night she sped
To her hut, and there he lay––
But cold and stiff, on his dreamless bed,
Where life had passed away!
Alas! for that poor mother's wail,
When she saw his cheek all wet with tears;
And thought what anguish would assail
His soul, when pangs and fears
Came o'er him, and he called in vain
On the only one who was dear to him;
Who could have soothed his dying pain,
And blessed him ere his eyes grew dim,
––At length she calmed her grief and laid
Her infant in the plantain's shade;
And, as if lulling him to rest,
Began a lowly warbled strain;
For she knew in death the child was blest,
And freed from the white man's chain;––
"My little one! my blessed one!
Would I were laid with thee!
Would that my limbs were fetterless
In lands beyond the sea.
Would I could burst life's long dark dream,
And be where thou art now,
Where cool gales from my native stream
Are freshening o'er thy brow.
"Thou art there! thou art there!
I see thee stand On our broad river's shore;
Thy father clasps thy little hand,
And you are slaves no more.
Tell him, thou dear, thou happy one,
Though I wear the white man's chain,
My galling task will soon be done,
And we all shall meet again.
"We all shall meet again, and see,
In the towering lolo's shade,
Our children sporting joyfully
Where we in childhood played.
My child, I will not mourn for thee;
Your shouts are echoing wide,
In the broad shade of the lolo tree,
On our own river's side."
Mary Howitt.
Nottingham, 1826.
This page references:
- 1 2023-08-01T11:12:52+00:00 Quaker 3 Items that relate to the Quaker sect of Christianity plain 2023-09-05T10:44:07+00:00
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Portrait of Mary Howitt (English MS 414/25+)
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Autographed Carte-de-visite, photographic portrait of the English painter and writer Mary Howitt, standing with her hands clasped; she wears a cloth bonnet, lace type shawl and dark coloured gloves. Trade plate of the Patent Casket Portrait Co. Produced by the Casket Portrait Company Limited studio at 40 Charing Cross, London. 'Mary Howitt' is handwritten at the top.
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2023-08-01T11:12:54+00:00
Ink; Pencil
Autographed Carte-de-visite, photographic portrait of the English painter and writer Mary Howitt, standing with her hands clasped; she wears a cloth bonnet, lace type shawl and dark coloured gloves. Trade plate of the Patent Casket Portrait Co. Produced by the Casket Portrait Company Limited studio at 40 Charing Cross, London. 'Mary Howitt' is handwritten at the top.