THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT

THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT
by William Cowper
FORCED from home and all its pleasures
           Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures
           O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
           Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
           Minds are never to be sold.

Still in thought as free as ever,
           What are England's rights, I ask,
Me from my delights to sever,
           Me to torture, me to task ?
Fleecy locks and black complexion
           Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
           Dwells in white and black the same.

Why did all-creating nature
           Make the plant for which we toil?
Sighs must fan it, tears must water,
           Sweat of ours must dress the soil.
Think, ye masters iron-hearted,
           Lolling at your jovial boards,
Think how many backs have smarted
           For the sweets your cane affords.

Is there, as ye sometimes tell us,
           Is there One who reigns on high?
Has He bid you buy and sell us,
           Speaking from his throne, the sky?
Ask him, if your knotted scourges,
           Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
           Agents of his will to use?

Hark! He answers!--Wild tornadoes
           Strewing yonder sea with wrecks,
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
           Are the voice with which he speaks.
He, foreseeing what vexations
           Afric's sons should undergo,
Fixed their tyrants' 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 colour 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!