A Poetical Tribute to John Woolman

Notes and Documents A POETICAL TRIBUTE TO JOHN WOOLMAN Edited by Thomas E. Drake John Woolman's death and memory inspired several people to memorialize him in verse. Most of their poems, including those of John G. Whittier and Elizabeth Morgan Chandler in America and Bernard Barton in England, date from the days of the nineteenth -century antislavery crusade. But two appeared in print in the year of Woolman's death, one in broadside form by Thomas May of Henley, and the other, anonymously, in a Yorkshire newspaper in 1772 and again in The European Magazine and London Review for October, 1784. This last has just been acquired by the Haverford College Library. All of the Woolman poems seem to have been known to Amelia Mott Gummere; she listed them in the bibliography of her Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922), 627 ff., with the exception of the anonymous verses, 1772. These, however, she gave to Haverford in 1937 in the form of an old manuscript entitled, "Verses made in England or thereaway on The Death of John Woolman." The manuscript has two poems on the same subject. The first is that of 1772; the second we have never seen in print; and with good reason, it is such poor verse. The first pleased at least two editors, and is perhaps worth reprinting here. The Yorkshire version, we are informed by Friends Library in London, is signed "A. S.", and dated at Halifax. Our own version in the European Magazine has no signature, but is introduced by a little paragraph subscribed "D." All this leaves it still anonymous. But, as "D" says, John Woolman's "doctrine and his humility were admired" in England, "which urged this tribute to his memory." To that memory then let us dedicate this poetic offering of an admiring Englishman: dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo, supremaque fuñera debet [The 1772 printing attributes these lines to Ovid.] 100 Notes and Documents101 How oft the Muse, smit by Ambition's blaze, Loads kings and heroes with unworthy praise; Who, while victorious in the martial field, To sordid vice and lawless passions yield! How oft she soars above Olympus far, And crowns with laurels their triumphant car, Which should in sable ever be array'd, And solemn roll beneath the Cypress shade! Then, shalt thou, Woolman, want a Bard sublime, To snatch thy labours from devouring time? Shalt thou, inurn'd, lie on Britannia's plains, Unwept and unregarded for thy pains? Shalt thou, remote from wife, from children dear, Thy pleasing country,* and thy friends sincere, Die in oblivion, on a foreign shore, And be remembered when thou art no more? Forbid it, Muse! and let some pen divine Be the protectress of his hallow'd shrine. While here below, to virtue he adher'd, And naught but God and his Redeemer fear'd. Unbounded love his humble actions grac'd, Whereby all sects, all nations were embrac'd. His doctrine flow'd pure as the morning dew, Free to the whole, and not confin'd to few; Thousands can witness, when they judge it meet, His words were powerful, and divinely sweet. In boundless love he left his native plain To stem the billows of th* Atlantic main, And landed heref, begirt with Christian toil, To probe the heart, or pour the healing oil. But, ah! that God, who sleeps not night or day, Who careful watch'd him o'er the rolling sea, Thought fit to intercept his safe return, And leave his consort and his friends to mourn. Yet hopeless weep not, when our tragic lays Echo from hence into your distanti place; The shocking news with Christian patience bear, And kiss the hand that seems to be severe: So may you on a sure foundation rest, And be hereafter, as we trust he's, blest. * America t England t America ...