With the rebels' blood! your troops fought loyally.
There's not a man of them will lend an ear
To pity.
Walworth. Is John Ball secured?
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
They have seized him. Shall fall before the flash.
Enter Guards with JOHN BALL.
1st Guard. We've brought the old villain. 2d Guard.
Why there's fifteen hundred of the mob are killed,
All through his preaching.
Sir John Tr. Prisoner, are you the arch-rebel, What does the Government avail the peasant? John Ball?
John Ball. I am John Ball; but I am not a rebel.
Take ye the name, who, arrogant in strength,
Rebel against the people's sovereignty.
Would not he plough his field, and sow the corn,
Ay, and in peace enjoy the harvest too?
Would not the sun shine and the dews descend,
Though neither King nor Parliament existed?
Sir John Tr. John Ball, you are accused of Do your court politics ought matter him?
That all mankind are equal, is most true:
Ye came as helepless infants to the world;
Ye feel alike the infirmities of nature;
And at last moulder into common clay. [earth
Why then these vain distinctions? — bears not the
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 stored with choicest wines?
Your larders hung with dainties, while your vassal,
As virtuous, and as able too by nature,
Though by your selfish tyranny deprived
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-
Would he be warring even unto death
With his French neighbours? Charles and Richard
And whereas your behaviour 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 open'd
Your heart torn out, and burnt before your face.
Your traitorous head be severed from your body.
Your body quarter'd, 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
For I am arm'd with rectitude of soul.
The truth, which all my life I have divulged,
And am now doom'd in torments to expire for,
Shall still survive. The destined hour must come,
When it shall blaze with sun-surpassing splendour,
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 rays of truth shall emanate around,
And the whole world be lighted.
POEMS CONCERNING THE SLAVE TRADE.
HOLD your mad hands! for ever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Niger's tainted flood,
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! and learn at length to know,
And turn your vengeance on the common foe,
Yon treacherous vessel and her godless crew!
Let never traders with false pretext fair
Set on your shores again their wicked feet:
With interdict and indignation meet
Repel them, and with fire and sword pursue !
Avarice, the white cadaverous fiend, is there,
Who spreads his toils accursed wide and far,
And for his purveyor calls the demon War.
"Tis night: the unrelenting owners sleep
As undisturb'd as Justice; but no more
The o'erwearied slave, as on his native shore,
Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep.
Though through the toil and anguish of the day
No tear escaped him, not one suffering groan
Beneath the twisted thong, he weeps alone
In bitterness; thinking that far away
While happy Negroes join the midnight song,
And merriment resounds on Niger's shore,
She whom he loves, far from the cheerful throng
Stands sad, and gazes from her lowly door
With dim-grown eyes, silent and woe begone,
And weeps for him who will return no more.
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-favouring smile, the breeze is fair;
Hark to the clamours of the exulting crew!
Hark how their cannon mock the patient skies!
Why dost thou shriek, and strain thy red-swoln eyes,
As the white sail is lessening 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!
DID then the Negro rear at last the sword
Of vengeance? Did he plunge its thirsty blade
In the hard heart of his inhuman lord?
Oh! who shall blame him? iu the midnight shade
There came on him the intolerable thought
Of every past delight; his native grove,
Friendship's best joys, and liberty and love,
For ever lost. Such recollections wrought
His brain to madness. Wherefore should he live
Longer with abject patience to endure
His wrongs and wretchedness, when hope can give
No consolation, time can bring no cure?
But justice for himself he yet could take,
And life is then well given for vengeance' sake.
Он, he is worn with toil! the big drops run
HIGH in the air exposed the slave is hung,
Down his dark cheek; hold-hold thy merciless hand, To all the birds of heaven, their living food!
Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command
O'erwearied nature sinks. The scorching sun,
As pitiless as proud Prosperity,
Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies
Arraigning with his looks the patient skies,
While that inhuman driver lifts on high
The mangling scourge. O ye who at your ease
Sip the blood-sweetened 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.
He groans not, though awaked by that fierce sun New torturers live to drink their parent blood; He groans not, though the gorging vulture tear The quivering fibre. Hither look, O ye Who tore this man from peace and liberty! Look hither, ye who weigh with politic care The gain against the guilt! Beyond the grave | There is another world ! . . bear ye in mind, Ere your decree proclaims to all mankind The gain is worth the guilt, that there the Slave Before the Eternal, "thunder-tongued shall plead Against the deep damnation of your deed."
WHO HAD SERVED IN THE SLAVE TRADE.
O THOU, who from the mountain's height
Rollest thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Nile's majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest Carthage in her ancient pride,
The mistress of the Main;
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 heave 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 through the awaken'd night.
Ah, linger not to hear the song!
Genius, avenge thy children's wrong!
The demon Avarice on your shore
Brings 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 wrongs redress! Heed the mother's wretchedness, When in the hot infectious air O'er her sick babe she bows opprest,. Hear her when the Traders tear The suffering infant from her breast! Sunk in the ocean he shall rest! Hear thou the wretched mother's cries, Avenging Power! awake! arise!
By the rank infected air
That taints those cabins of despair;
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;
The vices and the 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
Sent 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 breathed the gales of Death,
In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of Bristol discovered a sailor in the neighbourhood of that city, groaning and praying in a cow-house. The circumstance which 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.
It was a Christian minister,
Who, in the month of flowers, Walk'd forth at eve amid the fields Near Bristol's ancient towers;
When from a lonely out-house breathed,
He heard a voice of woe,
And groans which less might seem from pain,
Than wretchedness to flow;
Heart-rending groans they were, with words
Of bitterest despair,
Yet with the holy name of Christ
Pronounced in broken prayer.
The Christian minister went in,
A Sailor there he sees,
Whose hands were lifted up to Heaven,
And he was on his knees.
Nor did the Sailor so intent
His entering footsteps heed,
But now "Our Father" said, and now His half-forgotten creed;
And often on our Saviour call'd
With many a bitter groan,
But in such anguish as may spring
From deepest guilt alone.
The miserable man was ask'd
Why he was kneeling there, And what had been the crime that caused The anguish of his prayer?
"I have done a cursed thing!" he cried, "It haunts me night and day, And I have sought this lonely place Here undisturb'd to pray.
Aboard I have no place for prayer,
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.
SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE AT OXFORD,
INSTALLATION OF LORD GRENVILLE.
Domestic loves, and ancient liberty,
Look to thyself, O England! for be sure,
Even to the measure of thine own desert,
The cup of retribution to thy lips
Shall soon or late be dealt!.. a thought that well
Might fill the stoutest heart of all thy sons
With aweful apprehension. Therefore, they
Who fear the Eternal's justice, bless thy name,
Grenville, because the wrongs of Africa
Cry out no more to draw a curse from Heaven
On England!-for if still the trooping sharks
Track by the scent of death the accursed ship
GRENVILLE, few years have had their course, since last Freighted with human anguish, in her wake
Exulting Oxford view'd a spectacle
Like this day's pomp; and yet to those who throng'd
These walls, which echo'd then with Portland's praise,
What change hath intervened! The bloom of spring
Is fled from many a cheek, where roseate joy
And beauty bloom'd; the inexorable Grave
Hath claim'd its portion; and the band of youths,
Who then, collected here as in a port
From whence to launch on life's adventurous sea,
Stood on the beach, ere this have found their lots
Of good or evil. Thus the lapse of years,
Evolving all things in its quiet course,
Pursue the chace, crowd round her keel, and dart
Toward the sound contending, when they hear
The frequent carcass from her guilty deck
The guilt shall rest on England; but if yet
Dash in the opening deep, no longer now
There be among her children, hard of heart
And sear'd of conscience, men who set at nought
Her laws and God's own word, upon themselves
Their sin be visited!.. the red-cross fiag,
Redeem'd from stain so foul, no longer now
Covereth the abomination.
Hath wrought for them; and though those years have O Grenville, and while ages roll away
Fearful vicissitudes, of wilder change
Than history yet had learnt, or old romance
In wildest mood imagined, yet these too,
Portentous as they seem, not less have risen
Each of its natural cause the sure effect,
All righteously ordain'd. Lo! kingdoms wreck'd,
Thrones overturn'd, built up, then swept away
Like fabrics in the summer clouds, dispersed
By the same breath that heap'd them; rightful kings,
Who, from a line of long-drawn ancestry
Held the transmitted sceptre, to the axe
Bowing the anointed head; or dragg'd away
To eat the bread of bondage; or escaped
Beneath the shadow of Britannia's shield,
There only safe. Such fate have vicious courts,
Statesmen corrupt, and fear-struck policy,
Upon themselves drawn down; till Europe, bound
In iron chains, lies bleeding in the dust,
Beneath the feet of upstart tyranny:
Only the heroic Spaniard, he alone
Yet unsubdued in these degenerate days,
With desperate virtue, such as in old time,
Hallow'd Saguntum and Numantia's name,
Stands up against the oppressor undismay'd.
So may the Almighty bless the noble race,
And crown with happy end their holiest cause
Deem not these dread events the monstrous birth Of chance! And thou, O England, who dost ride Serene amid the waters of the flood,
Preserving, even like the Ark of old,
Amid the general wreck, thy purer faith,
This shall be thy remembrance. Yea, when all
For which the tyrant of these abject times
Hath given his honourable name on earth,
His nights of innocent sleep, his hopes of heaven;
When all his triumphs and his deeds of blood,
The fretful changes of his feverish pride,
His midnight murders and perfidious plots,
Are but a tale of years so long gone by,
That they who read distrust the hideous truth,
Willing to let a charitable doubt
Abate their horror; Grenville, even then
Thy memory will be fresh among mankind;
Afric with all her tongues will speak of thee,
With Wilberforce and Clarkson, he whom Heaven,
To be the apostle of this holy work,
Raised up and strengthen'd, and upheld through all
His arduous toil. To end the glorious task,
That blessed, that redeeming deed was thine:
Be it thy pride in life, thy thought in death,
Thy praise beyond the tomb. The statesman's fame
Will fade, the conqueror's laurel crown grow sere;
Fame's loudest trump upon the ear of Time
Leaves but a dying echo; they alone
Are held in everlasting memory,
Whose deeds partake of heaven. Long ages hence,
Nations unborn, in cities that shall rise
Along the palmy coast, will bless thy name;
And Senegal and secret Niger's shore,
And Calabar, no longer startled then
With sounds of murder, will, like Isis now,
Ring with the songs that tell of Grenville's praise.
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