To Englishmen
By John Greenleaf 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 oer 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 walloping the nigger!*
O Englishmen!in hope and creed,
In blood and tongue our brothers!
We too are heirs of Runnymede;
And Shakespeares fame and Cromwells deed
Are not alone our mothers.
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 gift 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 Englands 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 Slaverys crusade?
Oh, black disgrace! Oh, 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 pirates skull-bone blazon!