The Negro's Complaint Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHEIEI JKJKLMLMNOPQRSTTUTUJ VJVTWTWEXEXTTTTForc'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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