Well we should have, it’s a fascinating repository of insights into the cotton famine, crucially all written at the time, hence it’s such an invaluable resource.
There are hundreds of poems, frequently by writers of the working classes, if not actual hungry unemployed cotton workers. It’s fair to say the quality varies but many of them display a high level of skill and sophistication. They reveal a very broad range of voices and views, some very powerful anti slavery, and some not. Many of the writers just want the American civil war to end, regardless of who won, and the supply of cotton to resume so that people could get back to work and feed their families. That Lancashire cotton workers refused to work the cotton picked by slaves is clearly a rather romantic interpretation of events. But when economics turn grim it’s always the poorest who suffer the most, how could they be expected to think of anything but their own survival in the face of such hunger and starvation? There’s also poetry written in America, some of which seems to be in response to the Lancashire poems, and vice versa, as if there was a thriving to and fro of argument and opinion going back and forth across the Atlantic. So the poems were actually an important aspect of the battle for public opinion, the propaganda war. But at their best they take us into the moment, and reveal to us first hand the pain and suffering the US civil war wrought upon the folks of Lancashire. Ye call me a cruel reaper,
And say that I love to mow The fairest and sweetest blossoms, And lay their young beauty low: But oh! if ye knew the heart-aches That all who live long must know, Ye would hail me a pitying angel, Your best friend and not your foe. Ah, yes! I’m a pitying angel of light, On a mission of mercy sent; And whene’er I see a smile too bright, And a heart too innocent, Too tender and warm for your world of ice, I waft them away into Paradise. Mine aspect is pale and chilling; Cold, cold is my marble kiss; But it seals the awful passport To a world of eternal bliss. Oh! if ye but knew, ye mothers, The misery my stroke may spare Your babes, I should be watchword Of hope, and not of despair! Ah yes! I’m a pitying angel of light, On a mission of mercy sent; And whene’er I see a smile too bright, And a heart too innocent, Too tender and warm for your world of ice, I waft them away into Paradise. O’er a bud of the Bordighiera,* A sweet little maid I passed, Going, after long years of school life, To her palmy home at last. When all round were weeping and wailing, I said to myself and smiled: She’ll have holidays in Heaven, ‘Mid the immortal palms, sweet child! Ah yes! I’m a pitying angel of light, On a mission of mercy sent; And whene’er I see a smile too bright, And a heart too innocent, Too tender and warm for this world of ice, I waft them away into Paradise. On a delicate orphan flower With cold prospects, but heart of fire, I breathed in an east wind, and bore him Away to his heavenly Sire, While his mother was sobbing in anguish; I thought she should weep with joy! For ‘tis God himself hath provided For her poor dear fatherless boy! Ay! To hearts like his I’m angel of light, On a mission of mercy sent: He hath bidden a stormy world good-night, And now sleepeth in sweet content. What has he to do with a world of ice? Whose climate and home are in Paradise! - Chambers’s Journal. *The Bordighiera is a beautiful spot, celebrated for its palm trees, in the Riviére de Gênes. Rise to the task with good heart in the morning,
Seek not, the duty of labour to shirk, Labour degrading? the thought rightly scorning, Willingly, cheerfully bend to the work. Not like a thing, without meaning or notion, Wielding the hammer with dull senseless clink; Not a machine, with but one line of motion, In round unvarying, - work, lads, and think. Think of the men who have laboured before you; Think of the brave hearts that laurels have won; Not stooping like cravens, hard lot to deplore you – The race is half won if in earnest begun. Look – look around on the triumphs of labour, Think of the blessings ‘t has brought, nor then shrink From hope in the task; with aim in your labour, Honestly, earnestly, work, lads, and think. Nor with ambition for fame or for station; Seeking applause form the popular tongue, Though praise may be from the heart of a nation, Rightfully, truthfully, honestly wrung. What, though your worth by the world unconceded? With good honest toil your fortunes still link: Toil bringeth blessings – obscure and unheeded; Work for the love of it, work, lads, and think. When rogues fall out, our fathers said,
True men come by their own. That proverb's now, by fact quite dead Against it, overthrown. Lo, North and South the sword have drawn, And meet with bayonets crossed; Our supply of cotton’s gone, Our weavers’ living lost. |
AuthorMick Martin is a writer and theatre maker. Archives
April 2022
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