Your letter of Apl 4th, the date of which
makes me ashamed, should have received a much earlier reply
had it not been for the difficulty I found in fixing my mind
upon a subject, which has already received almost every species
of poetic embellishment, and has been presented to the public in such
a variety of forms. After adopting and discarding various topics, as
connected with the general question, the simple form of expression
which heads the following stanzas, occurred to me, and was the
germ from which every other thought proceeded. I could view
Slavery in no other light than that of one continued system
of oppression and terror, and therefore, have considered it in its
effects, as operating both on matter and mind - on man, in his
health and spirits - on man, as amenable to the civil law, and
as a professing christian - operating on every relation of life, whether
civil, domestic, or religious -- and its, tremendous results, in reference
to the just judgments of a sin-avenging God. In order to produce effect,
I have aimed more at strength than ease; and if I shall
have produced anything capable of imparting either satisfaction
to yourself or aid to the cause, it will be sufficient for me
to know, with the female in the gospel, that though I have
not done what I would, I have done what I could and
that little has been accepted. With christian regards to the
family,
I am
With the utmost Respect
Your Obedt Servant
James Everett
Manchester.
June 14th 1826
Reign of Terror
Away, away, for terror here
resurps an universal reign.
Away, like righteous Lot, in fear
Nor tarry those in all the plain.
Away, for through the Western Isles
Which sprang from occan's bed in smiles
damon stalks, and claims the whole
Like him who once to Edon stoll
And spread the blight of death.
His music is the victim's cry,
The shrivelling glance is in his eye,
Infection in his breath.
Talk not of joy, where slavery reigns.
Of brightning hopes midst "hope deferr'd,
The negro's joys are huny in chains
The negro's hopes are all interrd:
He sees the writing on the wall
In laws, enacted to enthral
And seems, in every drivers hand
To see, upon the desert sand
The lion's fatal pan
And in the voice of men of blood
To hear the voice that shakes the wood,
And holds the soul in awe
Foul Misery, like a blast from hell,
Hath forced throughout the soul its way
As mighty tempests when they swell
And toss on high the ocean spray
And every flood in maniac form
Becomes the plaything of the storm
Still driving onward, still the tide
Hath burst the vessels rampart side
Through which the torrents pour --
And pour like cataracts from the rocks
Tremendous as the earthquake's shocks,
While all her dungeons roar
The face which once was full and round
Where health sat smiling through the jet,
And eyes, still more expressive found
Are sunk, like suns, untimely set.
But deeper shadows than the skin
Like musts, from troubled thoughts within
Arise, to dim the joyous sight,
And fret away the frame of might,
without the power to flee
Those shadows -- sudden as a squall --
Flit o'er the face, and darken all
Like winds across the sea.
Lo, in the precincts of the court
where Justice only should preside
To blacks, for proof, will none resort
The white man's oath is ne'er denied
Though undefiled the negro's hands
In lifeless silence still he stands
His inward spirit shrieks unheard,
And needed like the wailing bird,
Upon some lonely tower
While Terror, from his lurid seat,
And withering as the lightnings heat,
Descends supreme in power
To slaves -- except the christian few
The Sabbath's holy calm is lost
And these, their weekly toil pursue
With minds, by human tempests tost.
Their boding thoughts, from various ills,
Like floods amidst the wildest hills
Which rage throughout the lengthen'd night.
Rush headlong from their fearful height,
and seek the stream that flows;
For, stooping from its dreary place,
The mind sweeps trough the means of grace,
Till fury finds repose
But oft, ere that repose is found
The men of Belial crowd the road
And dare to visit holy ground,
And stand among the sons of God:
Where damon art the balance holds
To weigh the truth the priest unfolds,
or basely -- and by civil test
Confound the freedom of the blest,
With freedom to the slave
And boldly charge that priest to flee,
Or try, with cruel mockery,
And doom him to the grave
The negro, branded at the mart
Pours forth in vain the rending sigh
A single bid will quail his heart,
And sever each domestic tie:
And where soe'er his feet ^shall roam,
His manhood ne'er will know a home!
No wife to sooth or raise his head.
No infant babes to cheer his shed
Or fan affections flame
His grave is distant and alone
The spot to wife and babes unknown,
-- No tablet for his name!
Not one of all the infant throng
That lies upon a mother's knee,
But gives to agony -- a tongue,
Unknown to children of the free,
Unknown to those, whose tears but flow
From transient fits of tiny woe,
And who, like troubled sea birds, cry
While passing through the stormy sky,
And then -- upon the wave --
As softly fall as gleams of light,
And float in beauty to the sight,
All fearless of a grave.
Ah, no! to babes in slavery born,
Few are the seas and skies serene,
All ruthless, from a mother torn,
Her weeping image still is seen;
Nor less her voice they seem to hear
In lingering tones on Memory's ear
Now echoing sweet -- now wildly roll
Through all the regions of the soul,
-- Then, soft -- and far away --
Like music on the midnight lake
Till, starting from the dream, they wake
To misery, a prey
Nor say, the mother cannot feel
At whom the poisoned dart is flung;--
The body owns the quivering steel
The tortured wild-cat loves her young:
And can she from her babes depart,
Whose life-strings twine around her heart, --
Those babes, whom nature e'er must own
As flesh of flesh and bone of bone,
And part without a pang?
O, no; -- employ the scourge, the knife,
And tear the limbs and threaten life,
On these she still must hang.
Away, away, for terror here
Usurps an universal reign,
Where parents, children, live in fear
And walk upon their kindred slain.
Away, -- for now those beauteous Isles,
With breath of balm and face of smiles,
-- which yet had man's Elysium been,
Had man himself not changed the scene,
Are threatened from above;
And judgment, though it linger long,
Will burst in wrath for Afric's wrong,
And now begins to move.
Away, -- for men of blood have piled
The fabric of their guilt so high
That dark, o'er Isles, which e'er had smiled,
It spreads its shadow to the eye.
Away, -- for Vengeance springs to birth,
And with the whirlwind sweeps the earth,
And bears, like autumn leaves away
The men of guilt, whose iron sway
Held innocence in chains.
Away, -- for down the fabric falls
The voice of blood for justice calls,
And God in Vengeance reigns.
James Everett.
Manchester
June 14th 1826
P.S. A line, noticing the reception
of the stanzas, will oblige.