Aye, and the sacred rights of property
Are evil and oppressive: — plead you guilty
To this most heavy charge?
JOHN BALL.
If it be guilt —
To preach what you are pleas’d to call strange notions.
That all mankind as brethren must be equal;
That privileg’d orders of society
Are evil and oppressive; that the right
Of property is a juggle to deceive
The poor whom you oppress; — I plead me guilty.
SIR JOHN TRESILIAN.
It is against the custom of this court
That the prisoner should plead guilty.
JOHN BALL.
Why then put you
The needless question? — Sir Judge, let me save
The vain and empty insult of a trial.
What I have done, that I dare justify.
SIR JOHN TRESILIAN.
Did you not tell the mob they were oppress’d,
And preach upon the equality of man;
With evil intent thereby to stir them up
To tumult and rebellion?
JOHN BALL.
That I told them
That all mankind are equal, is most true:
Ye came as helpless infants to the world:
Ye feel alike the infirmities of nature;
And at last moulder into common clay.
Why then these vain distinctions! — bears not the earth
Food in abundance? — must your granaries
O’erflow with plenty, while the poor man starves?
Sir Judge, why sit you there clad in your furs?
Why are your cellars stor’d with choicest wines?
Your larders hung with dainties, while your vassal,
As virtuous, and as able too by nature,
Tho’ by your selfish tyranny depriv’d
Of mind’s improvement, shivers in his rags,
And starves amid the plenty he creates.
I have said this is wrong, and I repeat it —
And there will be a time when this great truth
Shall be confess’d — be felt by all mankind.
The electric truth shall run from man to man,
And the blood-cemented pyramid of greatness
Shall fall before the flash!
SIR JOHN TRESILIAN
Audacious rebel!
How darest thou insult this sacred court,
Blaspheming all the dignities of rank?
How could the Government be carried on
Without the sacred orders of the king,
And the nobility?
JOHN BALL.
Tell me, Sir Judge,
What does the government avail the peasant?
Would not he plow his field and sow the corn,
Aye, and in peace enjoy the harvest too:
Would not the sunshine and the dews descend,
Tho’ neither King nor Parliament existed?
Do your Court Politics ought matter him?
Would he be warring even unto the death
With his French neighbours? — Charles and
Richard contend;
The people fight and suffer: — think ye, Sirs,
If neither country had been cursed with a chief,
The peasants would have quarrell’d?
KING.
This is treason!
The patience of the court has been insulted —
Condemn the foul mouth’d, contumacious rebel.
SIR JOHN TRESILIAN.
John Ball, whereas you are accused before us
Of stirring up the people to rebellion,
And preaching to them strange and dangerous doctrines;
And whereas your behavior to the court
Has been most insolent and contumacious;
Insulting Majesty — and since you have pleaded
Guilty to all these charges; I condemn you
To death: you shall be hanged by the neck,
But not till you are dead — your bowels opened —
Your heart torn out and burnt before your face —
Your traitorous head be sever’d from your body —
Your body quartered, and exposed upon
The city gates — a terrible example —
And the Lord God have mercy on your soul!
JOHN BALL.
Why be it so. I can smile at your vengeance,
For I am arm’d with rectitude of soul.
The truth, which all my life I have divulg’d
And am now doom’d in torment to expire for,
Shall still survive — the destin’d hour must come,
When it shall blaze with sun-surpassing splendor,
And the dark mists of prejudice and falsehood
Fade in its strong effulgence. Flattery’s incense
No more shall shadow round the gore-dyed throne;
That altar of oppression, fed with rites,
More savage than the Priests of Moloch taught,
Shall be consumed amid the fire of Justice;
The ray of truth shall emanate around,
And the whole world be lighted!
KING.
Drag him hence —
Away with him to death! order the troops
Now to give quarter and make prisoners —
Let the blood-reeking sword of war be sheathed,
That the law may take vengeance on the rebels.
THE END
POEMS CONCERNING THE SLAVE TRADE
CONTENTS
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet I
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet II
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet III
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet IV
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet V
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet VI
To The Genius Of Africa
The Sailor, Who Had Served in the Slave Trade
Verses Spoken in the Theatre at Oxford, upon the Installation of Lord Grenville
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet I
Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Nigers tainted flood
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear
The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore
Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,
With laurels water’d by the widow’s tear
Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!
And like the desolating whirlwinds sweep,
Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;
For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there
Breathes his gold-gender’d pestilence afar,
And calls to share the prey his kindred Daemon War.
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet II
Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,
And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries?
Before the gale the laden vessel flies;
The Heavens all-favoring smile, the breeze is fair;
Hark to the clamors of the exulting crew!
Hark how their thunders mock the patient skies!
Why dost thou shriek and strain thy red-swoln eyes
As the white sail dim lessens from thy view?
Go pine in want and anguish and despair,
There is no mercy found in human-kind —
Go Widow to thy grave and rest thee there!
But may the God of Justice bid the wind
Whelm that curst bark beneath the mountain wave,
And bless with Liberty and Death the Slave!
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet III
Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run
Down his dark cheek; hold — hold thy merciless hand,
Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command
O’erwearied Nature sinks
. The scorching Sun,
As pityless as proud Prosperity,
Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies
Arraigning with his looks the patient skies,
While that inhuman trader lifts on high
The mangling scourge. Oh ye who at your ease
Sip the blood-sweeten’d beverage! thoughts like these
Haply ye scorn: I thank thee Gracious God!
That I do feel upon my cheek the glow
Of indignation, when beneath the rod
A sable brother writhes in silent woe.
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet IV
’Tis night; the mercenary tyrants sleep
As undisturb’d as Justice! but no more
The wretched Slave, as on his native shore,
Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep!
Tho’ thro’ the toil and anguish of the day
No tear escap’d him, not one suffering groan
Beneath the twisted thong, he weeps alone
In bitterness; thinking that far away
Tho’ the gay negroes join the midnight song,
Tho’ merriment resounds on Niger’s shore,
She whom he loves far from the chearful throng
Stands sad, and gazes from her lowly door
With dim grown eye, silent and woe-begone,
And weeps for him who will return no more.
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet V
Did then the bold Slave rear at last the Sword
Of Vengeance? drench’d he deep its thirsty blade
In the cold bosom of his tyrant lord?
Oh! who shall blame him? thro’ the midnight shade
Still o’er his tortur’d memory rush’d the thought
Of every past delight; his native grove,
Friendship’s best joys, and Liberty and Love,
All lost for ever! then Remembrance wrought
His soul to madness; round his restless bed
Freedom’s pale spectre stalk’d, with a stern smile
Pointing the wounds of slavery, the while
She shook her chains and hung her sullen head:
No more on Heaven he calls with fruitless breath,
But sweetens with revenge, the draught of death.
Poems On The Slave Trade - Sonnet VI
High in the air expos’d the Slave is hung
To all the birds of Heaven, their living food!
He groans not, tho’ awaked by that fierce Sun
New torturers live to drink their parent blood!
He groans not, tho’ the gorging Vulture tear
The quivering fibre! hither gaze O ye
Who tore this Man from Peace and Liberty!
Gaze hither ye who weigh with scrupulous care
The right and prudent; for beyond the grave
There is another world! and call to mind,
Ere your decrees proclaim to all mankind
Murder is legalized, that there the Slave
Before the Eternal, “thunder-tongued shall plead
“Against the deep damnation of your deed.”
To The Genius Of Africa
O thou who from the mountain’s height
Roll’st down thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;
Or o’er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest thy Palmyra’s ancient pride,
Amid whose desolated domes
Secure the savage chacal roams,
Where from the fragments of the hallow’d fane
The Arabs rear their miserable homes!
Hear Genius hear thy children’s cry!
Not always should’st thou love to brood
Stern o’er the desert solitude
Where seas of sand toss their hot surges high;
Nor Genius should the midnight song
Detain thee in some milder mood
The palmy plains among
Where Gambia to the torches light
Flows radiant thro’ the awaken’d night.
Ah, linger not to hear the song!
Genius avenge thy children’s wrong!
The Daemon COMMERCE on your shore
Pours all the horrors of his train,
And hark! where from the field of gore
Howls the hyena o’er the slain!
Lo! where the flaming village fires the skies!
Avenging Power awake — arise!
Arise thy children’s wrong redress!
Ah heed the mother’s wretchedness
When in the hot infectious air
O’er her sick babe she bows opprest —
Ah hear her when the Christians tear
The drooping infant from her breast!
Whelm’d in the waters he shall rest!
Hear thou the wretched mother’s cries,
Avenging Power awake! arise!
By the rank infected air
That taints those dungeons of despair,
By those who there imprison’d die
Where the black herd promiscuous lie,
By the scourges blacken’d o’er
And stiff and hard with human gore,
By every groan of deep distress
By every curse of wretchedness,
By all the train of Crimes that flow
From the hopelessness of Woe,
By every drop of blood bespilt,
By Afric’s wrongs and Europe’s guilt,
Awake! arise! avenge!
And thou hast heard! and o’er their blood-fed plains
Swept thine avenging hurricanes;
And bade thy storms with whirlwind roar
Dash their proud navies on the shore;
And where their armies claim’d the fight
Wither’d the warrior’s might;
And o’er the unholy host with baneful breath
There Genius thou hast breath’d the gales of Death.
So perish still the robbers of mankind!
What tho’ from Justice bound and blind
Inhuman Power has snatch’d the sword!
What tho’ thro’ many an ignominious age
That Fiend with desolating rage
The tide of carnage pour’d!
Justice shall yet unclose her eyes,
Terrific yet in wrath arise,
And trample on the tyrant’s breast,
And make Oppresion groan opprest.
The Sailor, Who Had Served in the Slave Trade
In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of Bristol,
discovered a Sailor in the neighbourhood of that City,
groaning and praying in a hovel. The circumstance that
occasioned his agony of mind is detailed in the annexed
Ballad, without the slightest addition or alteration. By
presenting it as a Poem the story is made more public, and
such stories ought to be made as public as possible.
He stopt, — it surely was a groan
That from the hovel came!
He stopt and listened anxiously
Again it sounds the same.
It surely from the hovel comes!
And now he hastens there,
And thence he hears the name of Christ
Amidst a broken prayer.
He entered in the hovel now,
A sailor there he sees,
His hands were lifted up to Heaven
And he was on his knees.
Nor did the Sailor so intent
His entering footsteps heed,
But now the Lord’s prayer said, and now
His half-forgotten creed.
And often on his Saviour call’d
With many a bitter groan,
In such heart-anguish as could spring
From deepest guilt alone.
He ask’d the miserable man
Why he was kneeling there,
And what the crime had been that caus’d
The anguish
of his prayer.
Oh I have done a wicked thing!
It haunts me night and day,
And I have sought this lonely place
Here undisturb’d to pray.
I have no place to pray on board
So I came here alone,
That I might freely kneel and pray,
And call on Christ and groan.
If to the main-mast head I go,
The wicked one is there,
From place to place, from rope to rope,
He follows every where.
I shut my eyes, — it matters not —
Still still the same I see, —
And when I lie me down at night
’Tis always day with me.
He follows follows every where,
And every place is Hell!
O God — and I must go with him
In endless fire to dwell.
He follows follows every where,
He’s still above — below,
Oh tell me where to fly from him!
Oh tell me where to go!
But tell me, quoth the Stranger then,
What this thy crime hath been,
So haply I may comfort give
To one that grieves for sin.
O I have done a cursed deed
The wretched man replies,
And night and day and every where
’Tis still before my eyes.
I sail’d on board a Guinea-man
And to the slave-coast went;
Would that the sea had swallowed me
When I was innocent!
And we took in our cargo there,
Three hundred negroe slaves,
And we sail’d homeward merrily
Over the ocean waves.
But some were sulky of the slaves
And would not touch their meat,
So therefore we were forced by threats
And blows to make them eat.
One woman sulkier than the rest
Would still refuse her food, —
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 27