49. to Englishmen.
by John G. Whittier.
You flung your taunt across the wave;We bore it as became us,
Well knowing that the fettered slave
Left friendly lips no option save
To pity or to blame us.
You scoffed our plea. “Mere lack of will,
Not lack of power,” you told us;
We showed our free-State records; still
You mocked, confounding good and ill,
Slave-haters and slaveholders.
We struck at slavery; to the verge
Of power and means we checked it:
Lo!--presto, change! its claims you urge,
Send greetings to it o'er the surge,
And comfort and protect it.
But yesterday you scarce could Shake,
In slave-abhorring rigor,
Our Northern palms, for conscience‘ sake;
To-day you clasp the hands that ache
With “wallopping the nigger!” 1
O Englishmen!--in hope and creed,
In blood and tongue our brothers I
We, too, are heirs of Runnymede;
And Shakspeare's fame and Cromwell's deed,
Are not alone our mother's.
“Thicker than water,” in one rill,
Through centuries of story,
Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still
We share with you its good and ill,
The shadow and the glory.
Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave
Nor length of years can part us:
Your right is ours to shrine and grave,
The common freehold of the brave,
The gifts of saints and martyrs.
Our very sins and follies teach
Our kindred frail and human:
We carp at faults with bitter speech,
The while for one unshared by each
We have a score in common.
We bowed the heart, if not the knee,
To England's Queen-God bless her!
We praised you when your slaves went free:
We seek to unchain ours. Will ye
Join hands with the oppressor?
And is it Christian England cheers
The bruiser, not the bruised?
And must she run, despite the tears
And prayers of eighteen hundred years,
A muck in Slavery's crusade?
O black disgrace! 0 shame and loss,
Too deep for tongue to phrase on!
Tear from your flag its holy cross,
And in your van of battle toss
The pirate's skull-bone blazon!
