The Liberty Minstrel | Page 4

their tyrant's habitations,?Where his whirlwinds answer--No!
By our blood in Afric' wasted,?Ere our necks received the chain;?By the miseries that we tasted,?Crossing in your barks the main:?By our sufferings, since ye brought us?To the man-degrading mart,?All sustained by patience, taught us?Only by a broken heart--
Deem our nation brutes no longer,?Till some reason ye shall find,?Worthier of regard and stronger?Than the _color_ of our kind.?Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings?Tarnish all your boasted powers;?Prove that you have human feelings,?Ere you proudly question ours.
NEGRO BOY SOLD FOR A WATCH.[1]
[Footnote 1: An African prince having arrived in England, and having been asked what he had given for his watch, answered, "What I will never give again--I gave a fine boy for it."]
Words by Cowper. Arranged by G.W.C. from an old theme.
[Music]
When avarice enslaves the mind,?And selfish views alone bear sway?Man turns a savage to his kind,?And blood and rapine mark his way.?Alas! for this poor simple toy,?I sold the hapless Negro boy.
His father's hope, his mother's pride,?Though black, yet comely to the view?I tore him helpless from their side,?And gave him to a ruffian crew--?To fiends that Afric's coast annoy,?I sold the hapless Negro Boy.
From country, friends, and parents torn,?His tender limbs in chains confined,?I saw him o'er the billows borne,?And marked his agony of mind;?But still to gain this simple toy,?I gave the weeping Negro Boy.
In isles that deck the western wave?I doomed the hapless youth to dwell,?A poor, forlorn, insulted slave!?A BEAST THAT CHRISTIANS BUY AND SELL!?And in their cruel tasks employ?The much-enduring Negro Boy.
His wretched parents long shall mourn,?Shall long explore the distant main?In hope to see the youth return;?But all their hopes and sighs are vain:?They never shall the sight enjoy,?Of their lamented Negro Boy.
Beneath a tyrant's harsh command,?He wears away his youthful prime;?Far distant from his native land,?A stranger in a foreign clime.?No pleasing thoughts his mind employ,?A poor, dejected Negro Boy.
But He who walks upon the wind,?Whose voice in thunder's heard on high,?Who doth the raging tempest bind,?And hurl the lightning through the sky,?In his own time will sure destroy?The oppressor of the Negro Boy.
I AM MONARCH OF NOUGHT I SURVEY.
A Parody. Air "Old Dr. Fleury."
I am monarch of nought I survey,?My wrongs there are none to dispute;?My master conveys me away,?His whims or caprices to suit.?O slavery, where are the charms?That "patriarchs" have seen in thy face;?I dwell in the midst of alarms,?And serve in a horrible place.
I am out of humanity's reach,?And must finish my life with a groan;?Never hear the sweet music of speech?That tells me my body's my own.?Society, friendship, and love,?Divinely bestowed upon some,?Are blessings I never can prove,?If slavery's my portion to come.
Religion! what treasures untold,?Reside in that heavenly word!?More precious than silver or gold,?Or all that this earth can afford.?But I am excluded the light?That leads to this heavenly grace;?The Bible is clos'd to my sight,?Its beauties I never can trace.
Ye winds, that have made me your sport,?Convey to this sorrowful land,?Some cordial endearing report,?Of freedom from tyranny's hand.?My friends, do they not often send,?A wish or a thought after me??O, tell me I yet have a friend,?A friend I am anxious to see.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!?Compared with the speed of its flight;?The tempest itself lags behind,?And the swift-winged arrows of light.?When I think of Victoria's domain,?In a moment I seem to be there,?But the fear of being taken again,?Soon hurries me back to despair.
The wood-fowl has gone to her nest,?The beast has lain down in his lair;?To me, there's no season of rest,?Though I to my quarter repair.?If mercy, O Lord, is in store,?For those who in slavery pine;?Grant me when life's troubles are o'er,?A place in thy kingdom divine.
THE AFRIC'S DREAM.
Words by Miss Chandler. "Emigrant's Lament," arranged by G.W.C.
[Music]
Why did ye wake me from my sleep? It was a dream of bliss,?And ye have torn me from that land, to pine again in this;?Methought, beneath yon whispering tree, that I was laid to rest, The turf, with all its with'ring flowers, upon my cold heart pressed.
My chains, these hateful chains, were gone--oh, would that I might die, So from my swelling pulse I could forever cast them by!?And on, away, o'er land and sea, my joyful spirit passed,?Till, 'neath my own banana tree, I lighted down at last.
My cabin door, with all its flowers, was still profusely gay, As when I lightly sported there, in childhood's careless day! But trees that were as sapling twigs, with broad and shadowing bough, Around the well-known threshhold spread a freshening coolness now.
The birds whose notes I used to hear, were shouting on the earth, As if to greet me back again with their wild strains of mirth; My own bright stream was at my feet, and how I laughed to lave My burning lip, and cheek, and brow,