The Christian Slave Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCDCCDEFFEGHGIJKIL MMNOPPOQRRQSTTSUQQUO VVOWQQWXFFXWSSWXYYX| A CHRISTIAN going gone | A |
| Who bids for God's own image for his grace | B |
| Which that poor victim of the market place | B |
| Hath in her suffering won | C |
| My God can such things be | D |
| Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done | C |
| Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one | C |
| Is even done to Thee | D |
| In that sad victim then | E |
| Child of Thy pitying love I see Thee stand | F |
| Once more the jest word of a mocking band | F |
| Bound sold and scourged again | E |
| A Christian up for sale | G |
| Wet with her blood your whips o'ertask her frame | H |
| Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame Her patience shall not fail | G |
| A heathen hand might deal | I |
| Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years | J |
| But her low broken prayer and nightly tears | K |
| Ye neither heed nor feel | I |
| Con well thy lesson o'er | L |
| Thou prudent teacher tell the toiling slave | M |
| No dangerous tale of Him who came to save | M |
| The outcast and the poor | N |
| But wisely shut the ray | O |
| Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart | P |
| And to her darkened mind alone impart | P |
| One stern command Obey | O |
| So shalt thou deftly raise | Q |
| The market price of human flesh and while | R |
| On thee their pampered guest the planters smile | R |
| Thy church shall praise | Q |
| Grave reverend men shall tell | S |
| From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest | T |
| While in that vile South Sodom first and best | T |
| Thy poor disciples sell | S |
| Oh shame the Moslem thrall | U |
| Who with his master to the Prophet kneels | Q |
| While turning to the sacred Kebla feels | Q |
| His fetters break and fall | U |
| Cheers for the turbaned Bey | O |
| Of robber peopled Tunis he hath torn | V |
| The dark slave dungeons open and hath borne | V |
| Their inmates into day | O |
| But our poor slave in vain | W |
| Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes | Q |
| Its rites will only swell his market price | Q |
| And rivet on his chain | W |
| God of all right how long | X |
| Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand | F |
| Lifting in prayer to Thee the bloody hand | F |
| And haughty brow of wrong | X |
| Oh from the fields of cane | W |
| From the low rice swamp from the trader's cell | S |
| From the black slave ship's foul and loathsome hell | S |
| And coffle's weary chain | W |
| Hoarse horrible and strong | X |
| Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry | Y |
| Filling the arches of the hollow sky | Y |
| How long O God how long | X |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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