Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840/Thomas Clarkson, Esq.
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THOMAS CLARKSON, ESQ.
INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX.
Not to the many doth the earth
Owe what she hath of good,
The many would not stir life's depths,
And could not if they would.
It is some individual mind
That moves the common cause:
To single efforts England owes
Her knowledge, faith, and laws.
Too much by small low interests bound,
We track our selfish way,
Careless if hope to-day still takes
Its tone from yesterday.
We look upon our daily path,
We do not look beyond,
Forgetful of the brotherhood
In nature's mighty bond.
England, how glorious thine estate!
How lovely thine array!
Thou art the throned Island Queen
Whom land and sea obey.
Responsible is power, and owns
The holiest debt on earth—
A strict account it owes that Heaven
From whence it had its birth.
Can such be rendered up by thee?
Does neither guilt nor shame—
Guilt to redress—shame to efface—
Shade thy imperial name?
Thou who dost ask for wealth and rule
Wherever rolls the sea,
O Island Queen! how rests the claim
That millions have on thee.
And yet what grievous wrong is wrought,
Unnoticed and unknown,
Until some noble one stands forth,
And makes that wrong his own!
So stood he forth who first denounced
The slave-trade's cursed gain;
Such call upon the human heart
Was never made in vain.
For generous impulses and strong
Within our nature lie:
Pity, and love, and sympathy
May sleep, but never die.
Thousands, awakened to the sense,
Have never since that time
Ceased to appeal to God and man
Against the work of crime.
The meanest hut that ever stood
Is yet a human home;
Why to a low and humble roof
Should the despoiler come?
Grant they are ignorant and weak,
We were ourselves the same:
If they are children, let them have
A child's imploring claim.
The husband parted from the wife,
The mother from the child—
Thousands within a single year,
From land and home exiled.
For what?—to labour without hope
Beneath a foreign sky;
To gather up unrighteous wealth—
To droop—decline—and die!
Such wrong is darkly visited;
The masters have their part—
For theirs had been the blinded eye,
And theirs the hardened heart.
Evil may never spring unchecked
Within the mortal soul;
If such plague-spot be not removed,
It must corrupt the whole.
The future doth avenge the past—
Now, for thy future's sake,
Oh, England! for the guilty past
A deep atonement make.
The slave is given to thy charge,
He hopes from thee alone;
And thou, for every soul so given,
Must answer with thine own.
L. E. L.
Mr. Clarkson is now in his eightieth year; and so recently as the 15th of April, 1839, had the freedom of the City of London conferred upon him by an unanimous vote of the Corporation.