- ‘Twould be the fond ambition of her soul,
- To quell tyrannic sway;1 knock off the chains [235]
- Of heart-debasing slavery; give to man,
- Of every colour and of every clime,
- Freedom, which stamps him image of his God.
- Then laws, Oppression’s scourge, fair Virtue’s prop,
- Offspring of Wisdom! should impartial reign, [240]
- To knit the whole in well-accorded strife:
- Servants, not slaves;2 of choice, and not compell’d;
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The Blacks should cultivate the Cane-land isles.
- SAY, shall the muse the various ills recount,3
- Which Negroe-nations feel? Shall she describe [245]
- The worm that subtly winds into their flesh,4
- All as they bathe them in their native streams?
- There, with fell increment, it soon attains
- A direful length of harm. Yet, if due skill,
- And proper circumspection are employed, [250]
- It may be won its volumes to wind round
- A leaden cylinder: But, O, beware,
- No rashness practise; else ‘twill surely snap,
- And suddenly, retreating, dire produce
- An annual lameness to the tortured Moor.5 [255]
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A direct acknowledgment of the tyranny of slavery. Note that tyranny, an increasingly discussed topic during the late eighteenth-century Age of Revolutions, appears several more times in Book IV. ↩︎
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Grainger claims that even after they were freed, formerly enslaved Africans would continue to work on sugar plantations by choice, but this sentiment was a pro-slavery fantasy that was not borne out by reality after emancipation. ↩︎
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The abrupt shift in tone marks Grainger’s turn away from his abolitionist fantasy and toward a policy of amelioration, in which physicians like himself were to play a central role. Recall his words at the end of the preface: “I beg leave to be understood as a physician, and not as a poet.” See also Steven Thomas’ “Doctoring Ideology.” ↩︎
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Guinea worm or the dragon worm (Dracunculus medinensis) is a parasitic nematode acquired by drinking water contaminated by the water flea (genus Cyclops), which carries the worm’s larvae. The larvae break through the stomach lining and enter the bloodstream, growing to full size within a year. A pregnant female worm lives in connective tissues beneath the skin and eventually will release its larvae into a large blister, usually on the legs or arms. The worm’s migration produces such symptoms as itching, giddiness, breathing difficulties, vomiting, and diarrhea. The worm may come out spontaneously with the released larvae, but treatment typically involves attaching the worm to the end of a stick and winding it slowly out of the opening in the skin over the course of several days (the “leaden cylinder” that Grainger mentions in line 252 refers to this form of treatment). A broken worm causes an extreme allergic reaction that can be fatal, and blisters on the skin may ulcerate and become infected, resulting in an abscess and the “annual lameness” of which Grainger warns in line 255. Today, the worm may also be treated through anthelmintics. ↩︎
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Moor, a name for a native or inhabitant of Mauretania in North Africa (modern Morocco and Algeria versus Mauritania). ↩︎