30848In War Time — To EnglishmenJohn Greenleaf Whittier
TO ENGLISHMEN.
You flung your taunt across the wave;We bore it as became us,Well knowing that the fettered slaveLeft friendly lips no option saveTo 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; stillYou mocked, confounding good and ill,Slave-haters and slaveholders.
We struck at Slavery; to the vergeOf 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 acheWith "walloping the nigger!"[1]
O Englishmen!—in hope and creed,In blood and tongue our brothers!We too are heirs of Runnymede;And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deedAre not alone our mother's.
"Thicker than water," in one rillThrough centuries of storyOur Saxon blood has flowed, and stillWe share with you its good and ill,The shadow and the glory.
Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of waveNor 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 teachOur kindred frail and human:We carp at faults with bitter speech,The while for one unshared by eachWe 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 yeJoin hands with the oppressor?
And is it Christian England cheersThe bruiser, not the bruised?And must she run, despite the tearsAnd prayers of eighteen hundred years,A-muck in Slavery's crusade?
O black disgrace! O shame and lossToo deep for tongue to phrase on!Tear from your flag its holy cross,And in your van of battle tossThe pirate's skull-bone blazon!
↑See English caricatures of America: Slaveholder and cow-hide, with the motto, “Have n't I a right to wallop my nigger?”
