SLAVERY.

There is no flesh in man’s obdurate heart, It does not feel for man; the natural bond Of brotherhood is severed, as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not coloured like his own; and having power T’ enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause, Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey. ***** Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And worse than all, and most to be deplored, As human nature’s broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man? and what man seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man. Cowper.

Though cold as winter, gloomy as the grave, Stone walls a Prisoner make, but not a Slave. Shall man assume a property in man? Lay on the moral will a withering ban? Shame that our laws at distance should protect Enormities, which they at home reject! “Slaves cannot breathe in England”—a proud boast! And yet a mockery! if from coast to coast, Though fettered slave be none, her floors and soil Groan underneath a weight of slavish toil, For the poor many, measured out by rules Fetched with cupidity from heartless schools, That to an Idol, falsely called “the wealth Of Nations,” sacrifice a People’s health, Body, and mind, and soul, a thirst so keen Is ever urging on the vast machine Of sleepless Labour, ’mid whose dizzy wheels The power least prized is that which thinks and feels. Wordsworth.

Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave A lasting chain for his own slavery; In fear and restless care that he may live, He toils for others, who must ever be The joyless thralls of his captivity; He murders, for his chief delight’s in ruin; He builds the altar, that its idol’s fee May be his very blood; he is pursuing, O, blind and willing wretch! his own obscure undoing. Shelley.

Lives there a savage ruder than the slave? Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave, False as the winds that round his vessel blow, Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below, Is he who toils upon the wafting flood A Christian broker in the trade of blood; Boist’rous in speech, in action prompt and bold, He buys, he sells—he steals, he kills for gold. J. Montgomery.

Hast thou ever asked thyself What it is to be a slave? Bought and sold for sordid pelf, From the cradle to the grave. ’Tis to know thy transient powers E’en of muscle, flesh, and bone, Cannot, in thy happiest hours, Be considered as thine own. But thy master’s goods and chattels, Lent to thee for little more Than to fight his selfish battles For some bits of shining ore. ’Tis to learn thou hast a heart Beating in that bartered frame Of whose ownership—no part Thou canst challenge but in name; For the curse of slavery crushes Out the life-blood from its core, And expends its throbbing gushes But to swell another’s store. God’s best gift from heaven above, Meant to make a heaven on earth, Hallowing, humanizing love! With the ties which thence have birth, These can never be his lot, Who, like brutes, is bought and sold, Holding such—as having not On his own the spider’s hold. ’Tis to feel e’en worse than this, If aught worse than this can be, Thou hast shrined, for bale or bliss, An immortal soul in thee! But that this undying guest Shares thy body’s degradation, Until slavery’s bonds unblest, Check each kindling aspiration. And what should have been thy light, Shining e’en beyond the grave, Turns to darkness worse than night, Leaving thee a hopeless slave! Such is Slavery! Couldst thou bear Its vile bondage? Oh! my brother, How, then, canst thou, wilt thou dare To inflict it on another? Bernard Barton.

Slave-mart!— Oh, mart of blood!—but God for vengeance cries, And man shall shrink when slaves in judgment rise; The Power that moulds the lily’s snowy form, Ordains the sunbeam, and propels the storm, Whose boundless presence all creation fills, Adorns the valleys, and surmounts the hills, Designs for all, and yet creates alone, Shall rise at last to vindicate His own! J. Burbidge.

They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. Anon.