quote · Legacy record

Hast thou ever asked thyself What it is to be a slave? Bought and sold for sordid pelf, From the cradle to the grave. ’Tis to know thy transient powers E’en of muscle, flesh, and bone, Cannot, in thy happiest hours, Be considered as thine own. But thy master’s goods and chattels, Lent to thee for little more Than to fight his selfish battles For some bits of shining ore. ’Tis to learn thou hast a heart Beating in that bartered frame Of whose ownership—no part Thou canst challenge but in name; For the curse of slavery crushes Out the life-blood from its core, And expends its throbbing gushes But to swell another’s store. God’s best gift from heaven above, Meant to make a heaven on earth, Hallowing, humanizing love! With the ties which thence have birth, These can never be his lot, Who, like brutes, is bought and sold, Holding such—as having not On his own the spider’s hold. ’Tis to feel e’en worse than this, If aught worse than this can be, Thou hast shrined, for bale or bliss, An immortal soul in thee! But that this undying guest Shares thy body’s degradation, Until slavery’s bonds unblest, Check each kindling aspiration. And what should have been thy light, Shining e’en beyond the grave, Turns to darkness worse than night, Leaving thee a hopeless slave! Such is Slavery! Couldst thou bear Its vile bondage? Oh! my brother, How, then, canst thou, wilt thou dare To inflict it on another?

Hast thou ever asked thyself What it is to be a slave? Bought and sold for sordid pelf, From the cradle to the grave. ’Tis to know thy transient powers E’en of muscle, flesh, and bone, Cannot, in thy happiest hours, Be considered as thine own. But thy master’s goods and chattels, Lent to thee for little more Than to fight his selfish battles For some bits of shining ore. ’Tis to learn thou hast a heart Beating in that bartered frame Of whose ownership—no part Thou canst challenge but in name; For the curse of slavery crushes Out the life-blood from its core, And expends its throbbing gushes But to swell another’s store. God’s best gift from heaven above, Meant to make a heaven on earth, Hallowing, humanizing love! With the ties which thence have birth, These can never be his lot, Who, like brutes, is bought and sold, Holding such—as having not On his own the spider’s hold. ’Tis to feel e’en worse than this, If aught worse than this can be, Thou hast shrined, for bale or bliss, An immortal soul in thee! But that this undying guest Shares thy body’s degradation, Until slavery’s bonds unblest, Check each kindling aspiration. And what should have been thy light, Shining e’en beyond the grave, Turns to darkness worse than night, Leaving thee a hopeless slave! Such is Slavery! Couldst thou bear Its vile bondage? Oh! my brother, How, then, canst thou, wilt thou dare To inflict it on another?

In print by 1888 AD · industrial

Recorded in a printed collection by this date; the original date of these words is still unknown.