Words for the Hour/Slave Eloquence
SLAVE ELOQUENCE.
Why shouldst thou speak? stand, and lift up thy hands,That bear, before high heaven, a nation's crime,That touch with fire th' electric chain of truth,Left darkly rusting in our careless Time.
Stand, with the burthen of thine ancient lotPoising thy pliant figure, with a smileThat hath a dark and bitter memory in'tOf suffering unavenged—woe worth the while!
Stand, like the prophet's Christ, so grief-possestThat silence shall afflict us more than sound;Express in marble passion, motionless,The anguish of the fratricidal wound.
Thy cause needs no appealing—wrongs like thineNature makes dumb with greatness—do they craveThe lowliness of Pity? from all heartsThou hast it with this thought: here was a Slave.
Nay, speak, thou shadowy Image! thou art fainTo ease the throbbing fulness of thy heart,From lips that, not ungraciously, essayThe white man's language, not the white man's art.
Thou wilt not stoop to curses impotentAnd wild—such weakness is not for the free—With modest gesture and with manly phraseMake clear thy right—adorn thy liberty!
Nor turn to tear thy tyrants—thou hast learnedA lesson holier than wrath or hate;Since the borne sorrow leaves a bosom-riftWhere gentle Charity may penetrate.
Thy speech doth to the stronger race averSome deathless favors—Shakspeare's thought and rhyme,The knitted bond and logic of the law,And Jesu's words, the treasure of all time.
Speaking, he kept the measure of our wish.But we had deemed him eloquent, unheard,For, looking on the wronged and rescued man,His presence pleaded stronger than his word.