THE

NEGRO'S COMPLAINT.

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 theirs 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, which duty urges Agents of his will to use?

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR. LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

Hark! he answers Wild tornadoes,
Strewing yonder sea with wrecks;
Wasting towns, plantations, meadons,
Are the voice, with which he speaks.

Pub. by Johnson London March 1 1807.

Raimbach sculp

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 we have 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