Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO ENGLISHMEN, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: You flung your taunt across the wave Last Line: The pirate's skull-bone blazon! Subject(s): American Civil War; England; Slavery; U.s. - History; English; Serfs | ||||||||
YOU flung your taunt across the wave; We bore it as became us, Well knowing that the fettered slave Left friendly lips no option save To 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; still You mocked, confounding good and ill, Slave-haters and slaveholders. We struck at Slavery; to the verge Of 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 ache With "walloping the nigger"! 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 deed Are not alone our mother's. "Thicker than water," in one rill Through centuries of story Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still We share with you its good and ill, The shadow and the glory. Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave Nor 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 teach Our kindred frail and human: We carp at faults with bitter speech, The while, for one unshared by each, We 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 ye Join hands with the oppressor? And is it Christian England cheers The bruiser, not the bruised? And must she run, despite the tears And prayers of eighteen hundred years, Amuck in Slavery's crusade? Oh, black disgrace! Oh, shame and loss Too deep for tongue to phrase on! Tear from your flag its holy cross, And in your van of battle toss The pirate's skull-bone blazon! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOY IN THE WOODS by CLAUDE MCKAY ELIZABETH KECKLEY: 30 YEARS A SLAVE AND 4 YEARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE by E. ETHELBERT MILLER EMANCIPATION by ELIZABETH ALEXANDER JOHN BROWN'S BODY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET AMY WENTWORTH; FOR WILLIAM BRADFORD by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |
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