Classic Poem

Cease, Wilberforce, to urge thy generous aim —
Thy country knows the sin and stands the shame!
The preacher, poet, senator, in vain
Has rattled in her sight the Negro's chain,
With his deep groans assailed her startled ear
And rent the veil that hid his constant tear,
Forced her averted eyes his stripes to scan,
Beneath the bloody scourge laid bare the man,
Claimed pity's tear, urged conscience's strong control
And flashed conviction on her shrinking soul.
The muse, too soon awaked, with ready tongue
At mercy's shrine applausive paeans rung,
And freedom's eager sons in vain foretold
A new astrean reign, an age of gold!
She knows and she persists — still Afric bleeds;
Unchecked, the human traffic still proceeds;
She stamps her infamy to future time
And on her hardened forehead seals the crime.
In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, worth, and parts and eloquence are found;
In vain to push to birth thy great design
Contending chiefs and hostile virtues join;
All from conflicting ranks, of power possessed
To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast.
Where seasoned tools of avarice prevail,
A nation's eloquence, combined, must fail.
Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try —
The plausive argument, the daring lie,
The artful gloss that moral sense confounds,
Th' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds,
(Bane of ingenuous minds!) th' unfeeling sneer
Which sudden turns to stone the falling tear.
They search assiduous with inverted skill
For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill;
With impious mockery wrest the sacred page,
And glean up crimes from each remoter age;
Wrung nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell,
From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell;
In Britain's senate, misery's pangs give birth
To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth —
Forbear! thy virtues but provoke our doom
And swell th' account of vengeance yet to come.
For (not unmarked in Heaven's impartial plan)
Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow man?
And injured Afric, by herself redressed,
Darts her own serpents at her tyrant's breast.
Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known,
With sure contagion fastens on his own;
In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame,
And blows to rage impetuous passion's flame;
Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains
The milky innocence of infant veins;
There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire,
The whirlwind wakes of uncontrolled desire,
Sears the young heart to images of woe
And blasts the buds of virtue as they blow.
Lo! where reclined, pale beauty courts the breeze,
Diffused on sofas of voluptuous ease;
With anxious awe, her menial train around
Catch her faint whispers of half-uttered sound.
See her, in monstrous fellowship, unite
At once the Scythian and the Sybarite;
Blending repugnant vices, misallied,
Which frugal nature purposed to divide;
See her, with indolence to fierceness joined,
Of body delicate, infirm of mind,
With languid tones imperious mandates urge,
With arm recumbent wield the household scourge,
And with unruffled mien, and placid sounds,
Contriving torture and inflicting wounds.
Nor in their palmy walks and spicy groves
The form benign of rural pleasure roves;
No milkmaid's song or hum of village talk
Soothes the lone poet in his evening walk;
No willing arm the flail unwearied plies
Where the mixed sounds of cheerful labour rise;
No blooming maids and frolic swains are seen
To pay gay homage to their harvest queen;
No heart-expanding scenes their eyes must prove
Of thriving industry and faithful love:
But shrieks and yells disturb the balmy air,
Dumb sullen looks of woe announce despair
And angry eyes through dusky features glare.
Far from the sounding lash the muses fly
And sensual riot drowns each finer joy.
Nor less from the gay east on essenced wings,
Breathing unnamed perfumes, contagion springs;
The soft luxurious plague alike pervades
The marble palaces and rural shades;
Hence thronged Augusta builds her rosy bowers
And decks in summer wreaths her smoky towers;
And hence in summer bow'rs art's costly hand
Pours courtly splendours o'er the dazzled land.
The manners melt, one undistinguished blaze
O'erwhelms the sober pomp of elder days;
Corruption follows with gigantic stride
And scarce vouchsafes his shameless front to hide;
The spreading leprosy taints ev'ry part,
Infects each limb, and sickens at the heart.
Simplicity! most dear of rural maids,
Weeping resigns her violated shades;
Stern independence from his glebe retires
And anxious freedom eyes her drooping fires;
By foreign wealth are British morals changed,
And Afric's sons, and India's, smile avenged.
For you whose tempered ardour long has borne
Untired the labour, and unmoved the scorn,
In virtue's fasti be inscribed your fame,
And uttered yours with Howard's honoured name.
Friends of the friendless — hail, ye generous band
Whose efforts yet arrest Heaven's lifted hand,
Around whose steady brows in union bright
The civic wreath and Christian's palm unite!
Your merit stands, no greater and no less,
Without or with the varnish of success;
But seek no more to break a nation's fall,
For ye have saved yourselves, and that is all.
Succeeding times your struggles, and their fate,
With mingled shame and triumph shall relate,
While faithful history in her various page,
Marking the features of this motley age,
To shed a glory, and to fix a stain,
Tells how you strove, and that you strove in vain.