The Hireling and Slave |
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abolition Abolitionists abuses African America barbarian bestows black race blessings boon brave bread breeze bright bring broad brutal ceaseless Celt charm cheerful Christian civil climes clothing comfort confest Coolies cruelty demagogues deplore distant emigrant England Europe's evil Exeter Hall factious fear feast fields forest fortune fragrant friends gamate gives gold golden gospel grave hand happier heart Heaven's hope horse humble impart Indian Issachar Jamaica joyous knave knows land light live Lord Grey maize manumission manumitted master mode moral native negro never offal party pauper Hireling peace philanthropic philanthropists pines plantation poor possum Providence punished rising rule sable savage Saxon scenes scorn secures shining shore skies skill slave slave trade slaveholder Slavery sloth smile Southern sparkling spread starving Stowe stream strife thousand toil tribes tropic typhus wave wealth whip Whiteman's wigwam wild woes wood yields
Popular passages
Page 19 - O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil, Do not complain of this thy hard estate ; That like an emmet thou must ever moil, Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; And, certes, there is for it reason great; For, though sometimes it makes thee' weep and wail, And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come an heavier bale, Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
Page 51 - See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil ; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife And helpless offspring mourn.
Page 32 - In sloth and error sunk for countless years His race has lived, but light at last appears — Celestial light: religion undefiled Dawns in the heart of Congo's simple child ; Her glorious truths he hears with glad surprise, And lifts his eye with rapture to the skies ; The noblest thoughts that erring mortals know, Waked by her influence, in his bosom glow; His nature owns the renovating sway, And all the old barbarian melts away. And now, with sturdy hand and cheerful heart, He learns to master...
Page 26 - The food and shelter that their homes deny. Yet homebred misery, such as this, imparts Nor grief nor care to philanthropic hearts ; The tear of sympathy forever flows, Though not for Saxon or for Celtic woes; Vainly the starving white, at every door, Craves help or pity for the hireling poor; But that the distant black may softlier fare, Eat, sleep, and play, exempt from toil and care, All England's meek philanthropists unite With frantic eagerness, harangue and write; By purchased tools diffuse...
Page 90 - I never saw people look more happy in my life; and I believe their condition to be much more comfortable than that of the labourers of Great Britain...
Page 53 - Far other fortune, free from care and strife, For work, or bread, attends the negro's life, And Christian slaves may challenge as their own, The blessings claimed in fabled states alone — The cabin home, not comfortless, though rude, Light daily labor, and abundant food ; The sturdy health that temperate habits yield, The cheerful song that rings in every field, The long, loud laugh, that freemen seldom share, Heaven's boon to bosoms unapproached by care, And boisterous jest and humor unrefined...
Page 77 - North in suburban dens and human sties, In foul excesses sung, the Negro lies; A moral pestilence to taint and stain. His life a curse, his death a social gain, Debased, despised, the Northern pariah knows He shares no good that liberty bestows; Spurned from her gifts, with each successive year, In drunken want his numbers disappear.21 There was a carry-over of these ideas in the Reconstruction.
Page 36 - Instructed thus, and in the only school Barbarians ever know — a master's rule, The negro learns each civilizing art That softens and subdues the savage heart, Assumes the tone of those with whom he lives, Acquires the habit that refinement gives, And slowly learns, but surely, while a slave, The lessons that his country never gave.
Page 51 - Where hireling millions toil, in doubt and fear, For food and clothing all the weary year, Content and grateful if their masters give The boon they beg— to labor and to live; While dreamers task their idle wits to find A short-hand method to enrich mankind, And Fourier's scheme or Owen's plans entice Expectant thousands with some deep device For raising wages, for abating toil, And reaping crops from ill-attended soil: If, while the anxious multitudes appear, Now glad with hope, now yielding to...
Page 31 - Kidnap'd by brothers, and by fathers sold, The bondsman born, by native masters reared, The captive band, in recent battle spared; For English merchants bought, across the main, In British ships, they go for Britain's gain ; Forced on her subjects in dependent lands, By cruel hearts and avaricious hands, New tasks they learn, new masters they obey, And bow submissive to the white man's sway.
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Hireling and Slave |
| Author | William John Grayson |
| Edition | 2 |
| Publisher | J. Russell, 1854 |
| Original from | the Library of Congress |
| Digitized | Mar 12, 2007 |
| Length | 106 pages |
| Subjects | Labor Labor and laboring classes Labor movement Slavery Working class |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |