Portrait of John Bowring (English MS 414/45+)
1 2023-05-11T19:49:40+00:00 Christopher Ohge 67a4fbaba4797c94aa865988788fca89b5c37616 3 1 Pencil sketch portrait of the English politician, diplomatist, and writer Sir John Bowring. Clean shaven, he wears fairly formal dress, a bow tie and round glasses; he holds a scroll of paper. plain 2023-05-11T19:49:40+00:00 PencilPencil sketch portrait of the English politician, diplomatist, and writer Sir John Bowring. Clean shaven, he wears fairly formal dress, a bow tie and round glasses; he holds a scroll of paper.
Christopher Ohge 67a4fbaba4797c94aa865988788fca89b5c37616This page is referenced by:
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2023-05-11T19:36:23+00:00
The Negro, by John Bowring
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Poem by John Bowring
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2023-05-11T19:55:55+00:00
1826-02-04
I.Close to the deep and rapid ZaireI sat beneath a mangrove tree,And my young children sported thereIn the bright sunshine, gay and free:I saw their mother's grave, and said,"How blest a laughing child to be!How soon their little griefs are fled,Their joys, their raptures never flee."
II.She died, she died in peace:--but thoughtIn all those happy children metThe traces that affection sought;Their mother's image blessed me yet:And then I checked my tears awhile,(Grief e'en a negro's cheek can wet!)They smiled so like their mother's smile,O how could I that smile forget!
III.I looked upon my girls and boys,Now of a mother's love bereft;Though heaven had shaded many joys,Some yet unclouded joys were left:And I could hope that He who poursFresh waters from the rock that's cleft,He who destroys and who restores,Would retribute death's cruel theft!
IV.And thus I mused--and thus I taughtLife's energies to wake again:Alas! death's cruelties are nought,--Nought to the cruelties of men:--A fiercer tyrant far than death--The white man came!--I cried in vain,No sighs--nor tears--nor smothered breath,Could soothe or snap the negro's chain.
V.He tore me from my children's home;He wrenched me from their mother's grave!And will no day of vengeance come?Shall man his God for ever brave?Shall earth be made a desert still?Shall heaven be outraged--heaven that gaveA form erect, an upward will,A heavenly hope, to free and slave?
VI.What! have we not a soul to feel,And eyes to weep, and hearts to bleed?Though white man's heart is stone or steel;--Ours--ours is human flesh indeed.If hate--revenge--if hope--despair--Love--memory--all that mind can breed--Or good and evil angels share,Be man--of man--enslaved, or freed!
VII.The pangs unuttered thoughts create--The sweat-drops burning on my brow;The words of anguish and of hateThat tremble on my lips e'en now,Are they not human? Are they notOf passions such as those which bowThe white man's spirit--those which blotThe white man's page of vice and woe?
VIII.Yes! He who moulded mortal clay,And breathed his Spirit there,--who plannedCreation's infinite display,Hath coloured with a master's hand:Various and beautiful the raceOf scattered man--He stamped no brandOf slavery on the negro's face--Life--Liberty--were His command.
John Bowring