The Negro's Complaint Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHEIEI JKJKLMLMNOPQRSTTUTUJ VJVTWTWEXEXTTTT| Forc'd from home and all its pleasures | A |
| Afric's coast I left forlorn | B |
| To increase a stranger's treasures | A |
| O'er the raging billows borne | B |
| Men from England bought and sold me | C |
| Paid my price in paltry gold | D |
| But though theirs they have enroll'd me | C |
| Minds are never to be sold | D |
| Still in thought as free as ever | E |
| What are England's rights I ask | F |
| Me from my delights to sever | E |
| Me to torture me to task | F |
| Fleecy locks and black complexion | G |
| Cannot forfeit nature's claim | H |
| Skins may differ but affection | G |
| Dwells in white and black the same | H |
| Why did all creating Nature | E |
| Make the plant for which we toil | I |
| Sighs must fan it tears must water | E |
| Sweat of ours must dress the soil | I |
| Think ye masters iron hearted | J |
| Lolling at your jovial boards | K |
| Think how many backs have smarted | J |
| For the sweets your cane affords | K |
| Is there as ye sometimes tell us | L |
| Is there one who reigns on high | M |
| Has he bid you buy and sell us | L |
| Speaking from his throne the sky | M |
| Ask him if your knotted scourges | N |
| Fetters blood extorting screws | O |
| Are the means that duty urges | P |
| Agents of his will to use | Q |
| Strewing yonder sea with wrecks | R |
| Wasting towns plantations meadows | S |
| Are the voice with which he speaks | T |
| He foreseeing what vexations | T |
| Afric's sons should undergo | U |
| Fix'd their tyrants' habitations | T |
| Where his whirlwinds answer No | U |
| By our blood in Afric wasted | J |
| Ere our necks receiv'd the chain | V |
| By the mis'ries which we tasted | J |
| Crossing in your barks the main | V |
| By our suff'rings since ye brought us | T |
| To the man degrading mart | W |
| All sustain'd by patience taught us | T |
| Only by a broken heart | W |
| Deem our nation brutes no longer | E |
| Till some reason ye shall find | X |
| Worthier of regard and stronger | E |
| Than the colour of our kind | X |
| Slaves of gold whose sordid dealings | T |
| Tarnish all your boasted pow'rs | T |
| Prove that you have human feelings | T |
| Ere you proudly question ours | T |
William Cowper
(1)
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