Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/221

Forced from home and all its pleasures,
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures,
O'er the raging billows borne;
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though theirs they have enroll'd me,
Minds are never to be sold.

Still in thought as free as ever,
What are England's rights, I ask,
Me from my delights to sever
Me to torture, me to task?
Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit Nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in black and white the same.

Why did all creating Nature
Make the plant, for which we toil?
Sighs must fan it, tears must water,
Sweat of ours must dress the soil.
Think, ye masters, iron-hearted,
Lolling at your jovial boards,
Think, how many backs have smarted
For the sweets your cane affords.

Is there, as you sometimes tell us,
Is there One, who rules on high?
Has He bid you buy and sell us,
Speaking from his throne, the sky?
Ask Him, if your knotted scourges,
Fetters, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means, which duty urgea
Agents of His will to use I

Hark! He answers. Wild tornadoes
Strewing yonder sea with wrecks,
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
Are the voice with which He speaks.
He, foreseeing what vexations
Afric's sons should undergo,
Fix'd their tyrant's habitations
Where his whirlwinds answer — No I

By our blood in Afric wasted,
Ere our necks receiv'd the chain;
By the miseries, which we tasted
Crossing, in your barks, the main;
By our sufferings, since you brought us
To the man-degrading mart,
All sustain'd by patience, taught us
Only by a broken heart.