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The New Pantheon, or the Age of Black (XHTML)
[cover]
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THE
NEW PANTHEON
OR THE
AGE OF BLACK
ROLLO;
NEW YORK
1860
[inside cover]
[title page]
THE
NEW PANTHEON
OR THE
AGE OF BLACK
ROLLO;
NEW YORK
1860
[unnumbered page ii]
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
S.A. Rollo,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York
______________________
Davies & Kent,
Stereotypers and Electrotypers,
113 Nassau Street, N.Y.
______________________
[unnumbered page iii]
INTRODUCTION.
______________
The trivialities of the age, as well as its seriousness, in a politico-religious point of view, may justify, if not demand, a vindication of the right, in even such a trifling affair as the following.
Pretenders, without the slightest claim to the credit of religion, have undertaken to convert the Church into a cloak of imposture, and from its sacred desk send forth the most infamous and incendiary doctrines, subversive of the peace and happiness of the country.
Confident in the veneration of the people for the religion of their fathers, and conscious of every act of public injustice in exciting the revolutionary spirit which aroused them to war against oppression, they cunningly identify every question of political discussion with a religious fanaticism, and appeal to an incendiary sentiment to vindicate a popular principle.
In the first they seek a defense which finds no limit even in blasphemy, while in the second they discover not only a plea, but a vindication of midnight murder.
They “Search the Scriptures” with an infamy of purpose
[page iv]
that is equaled by their impiety; while the laws of the land are as insidiously denounced as the precepts of the Gospel are impiously perverted.
Associated with these religious pretenders, are a class of small literati, whose feeble efforts are warmed into sickly life by a mutual notice and protection; and with these again are mingled a motley class of sentimentalists in politics and morals, who have just enough of the milk of human kindness to nourish one species of the human family, while the blood that courses in their own veins is turned into a channel of discord against their own race.
Bound by a united hatred of people and country at home, they associate themselves with every vagrant influence, high and low, that they can bring to bear from abroad, and in the combined crusade thus formed, they proceed upon their treacherous work of discord and destruction.
That many of the subjects embraced in the following lines are immeasurably below the highest standard of popular criticism, the mediocrity of some, the blasphemous teachings and vulgar tirades of others sufficiently attest. The writer has, however, the consolation of knowing, that if he has fallen below the mark in any one particular, he has not entirely failed in his purpose; but that the subject has been altogether inadequate to inspire a still greater degree of public reprobation.
[unnumbered page 5]
THE NEW PANTHEON.
_________________
Since Rip Van Winkle took his drowsy slumber,
Woke up, and found the Country torn asunder,
No cause for war hath slept in peace so long,
As that which now awakes the Muse to song!
What cause hath wrought this change in this brief [5]
time—
The Reign of Reason, or the Reign of Crime?
[page 6]
To be content, the age too fast has grown,
And ev’ry thing that is done, is “done Brown!”
But to awake! The Muse, in sleeping fast, [10]
Has found her slumbers moping in the past;
She must be up and doing, else she’ll find
Her bridle-bit a good bit left behind.
To ride a weary Pegasus much linger
Would be a sin. I’ll mount a steed that’s stronger; [15]
So here’s to Black—the Age of all the Ages—
The darkest through all time, or through all pages.
Science has had its day—let Science pass—
Agassiz’ but a fool—Humboldt an ass—
Let Poetry to pot—and let Letters go! [20]
Who would be wise this age, must little know.
[page 7]
Money was once a God—but now, the God
Who rules the land is but an Ebony rod,
With which, when you but strike the trembling
Ground, [25]
Ten thousand monsters to the stroke resound.
Knowledge was Power—but now, the power to know,
Is how to make the Negro question go;
Religion once had sway—but now, the sleeve or
Sombre gown is but a black deceiver. [30]
Wisdom, whilom, received a certain praise—
But now, the wisest must be Negro crazed;
Talents and Virtues once bright homage won—
But now, the worship is the darkest sun.
Immortal Love, with all her gallant throng, [35]
At one time swayed the world with Youth and Song;
[page 8]
But now, bright Beauty and young Cupid’s flame,
Must yield their torch to Black and Cuffee’s fame.
Those, finding out the Negro is not fed,
Have turned that truth to earning their own bread; [40]
Finding the slave unclothed, they seize the crime
To clothe themselves, while lying all the time;
Finding that Caesar can not see the sin,
They turn his blindness to themselves within,
And spread his wrongs while gathering up the tin. [45]
The darkies’ day being dark, they see how near
They can approach his land with torch and spear;
The slave without a soul, they say, to save,
They see how far their own they can enslave.
Armed with these felon creeds, they fierce descend [50]
On tranquil homes, and midnight fiends defend;
[page 9]
Take rapine for a chart, and safely planned,
In dark retreat preach death to all the land,
Whose soil’s not cursed with their demoniac band.
The Plato of the Pantheon—plate in hand— (1) [55]
All hatless, comes and takes his brazen stand;
His stand in rear—but not his stand in lead,
For there his neck as well as heart would bleed.
Tho’ he might follow, yet his soul would quail,
And tho’ his tongue be loose—not free—would fail. [60]
He might pronounce a platitude in prose,
And give us doggerel in a parting dose;
But where the danger of a part’s to lead,
He’d vilely run to find a place to plead;
Be glad to talk a transcendental day [65]
Of fulsome trash—if out of danger’s way.
The Philip of the Modern Athens’ boast
Now claims a niche!—not Macedonia’s host
[page 10]
E’er yet produced so great a man as he,
To shake the Modern Philip of the Sea; (2) [70]
Nor Macedonia’s Madman, or the Swede,
E’er found a friend so false when one’s in need.
He’d fly from “Athens” for the doomed and slaved;
But, mind, where he securely lodged, was saved.
His pupil followed him—but he, more wise, [75]
Followed his pupil—but not in such a guise; (3)
He followed him to where his teachings led—
Not to his scaffold, but to his gory bed—
And dries his tears to find his victim hung,
While he but hangs his head and wags his tongue. [80]
The ancient Athens would have proudly spurned
Her Plato’s fame, could she have seen it turned
From its pure stream to where the Moderns claim;
To shed its luster o’er a traitor’s name.
[page 11]
And Philip, the stern King of Macedon, [85]
Would have been hanged ere he such claims had won
To future fame from such Philips as these,
Who more are Demons than Demosthenes.
Diogenes of Athens next stands forth—
With cynic spleen congealed in foams of wrath; [90]
He hurls defiance with the Modern’s art,
On heads not hardened like his own or heart;
Giving a poniard to the pinioned slave (4)
To save his soul, while he has none to save;
(So swear these ranters when they madly rave.) [95]
Offering freedom with a torch and axe,
While they but get it on their tortured backs;
Quotes Scripture like the Devil, and deceives
The slave himself in what he disbelieves;
[page 12]
Proffers him freedom from his mountain throne, [100]
While he has not a soul to call his own;
And not in thought, in word, in deed to save,
Is half as much a Freeman as a Slave.
The Cynic of the Mount can well afford
To proffer freedom when it brings a cord; [105]
And proffer homes to bondsmen, when ‘tis found
Some six feet deep beneath their masters’ ground.
But when the time arrives for him to lend
A helping hand, he has no help to send,
(Unless ‘tis his with whom his doctrines blend.) [110]
Then to secure the knot he doubly ties
By doctrines damned, he rails at Southern skies,
And dooms of wrath from Rome, pronounces dire,
Till other victims in his cause expire.
[page 13]
Let us but hope the day may come at last, [115]
When such curs’d parsons will be of the past.
The puling poets of the Pantheon school
The Muse must pass. They know no better—rule;
They parrot-pipe by rote, not heart—and should
Be spared the pillory, if their doctrines could. [120]
Be warned to take a warming near some fire
Whose flick’ring rays would light their murky lyre;
Whose lute, like Lowell’s pipes a piteous strain,
And squeals a clamor which they praise in vain.
The weak abortions of the Modern art, [125]
With all that’s vapid of the ancient part,
Whose fly-like motions on the wat’ry wheel,
Their insect minds in flying round reveal;
Who glory in the Atlantic’s milky way,
And drench their fires while they bedew their bays, [130]
[page 14]
The tiny tadpoles of its stagnant brine,
Who shame the Titans of the Hoary Nine.
And she, the Clio of this cloudy crew,
How shall my Pantheon Muse aspire to view?
She, who declaims so loud on wrongs and rights, [135]
And tho’ a woman, prates of bloody fights;
Whose sympathies profound on Negroes crossed,
Has not the heart to weep her sisters lost;
Who, when her peerless sex’s fate is near
In worse than death, has neither heart nor tear; [140]
Whose nature pure is changed to such a grade,
That she forgets the form in which she’s made;
Whose love for Black is so intensely mad,
That forms of white are coarse, to her, and bad;
That maidens, matrons, infants—helpless all— [145]
Rather than slaves should pine, should foully fall;
[page 15]
That o’er the cottage roof and field around,
The flames be spread so that no slave be found;
Who sees no beauty in a virgin’s face,
Unless some blood of Ham in her we trace; [150]
Who’d give to rapine all that dear to sex,
Provided it would sire or mother vex;
Whose Constancy of Woman is so great,
She proffers solace through the felon’s grate,
When he whom slave and midnight murder led, [155]
Had wife and daughter to attend his bed.
Th’ Pantheon honors next in order trace
The Cid-ney of the Black Brownzonial race.
The Cid was Brown (5) —but this is the Cid-ney,
Or next of kin to that immortal kidney. [160]
He who reads lectures, lounges, and of men—
According to the Clio—is a gem.
[page 16]
Who touches on no subject, good or bad,
But what he proves it Negrophobia mad.
Whether on Sidney or a Black Reformer, [165]
Surpasses Paul th’ Second as a stormer.
Who draws a picture of the peerless Knight,
Sir Philip Sidney, to be counted right;
But, who, if Sidney thought himself so like,
Would change his Knightly sword for John Brown’s [170]
pike.
I’m not surprised that Cid-ney takes to stumps,
Since his slaved readers can not take to Trumps;
He has a score of these, whose Weekly pains
In Harpers’ he inflicts, but ne’er en-chains. [175]
Brown made a tragic raid on Harper’s Ferry,
But C. makes his in Harpers’ Weekly merry.
[page 17]
When every occupation’s gone, then Niggers
Is the last game in which a fellow figures;
The great slave trade, in which a small outfit [180]
Of Cant, of Brass, of Lying, fits one in’t;
T’ denounce your neighbors, and invent a lie
To bleed the cause—but for it never die!
Th’ Paul of the Pantheon—not the Saint, but Pry—
Now rev’rently commands the gazer’s eye. [185]
But why reflect him here? since every place,
Where’er a place is found, you find his face,
His face in brass, or on a china vase,
Or stuck in plaster, or in daguerreotype;
Or in photography, you see the sight; [190]
Or, not content with these, why, look again,
You see it stare in print, nor stare in vain.
Six cents a-piece! Subscriptions taken here!
The Modern Paul is selling—very dear!
[page 18]
(‘Tis strange that men who traffic in their faces, [195]
Should preach down Slav’ry which their own
disgraces.)
A gallery of himself in every shop,
Which, to admire, the curious crowd will stop
And gaze upon, within its many phases, [200]
Revolving views of Paul’s one hundred faces.
Can this be fame, or pride, or fallen art—
Grown cheap as dirt, and needs must make a start?
Or is it seeds of glory sown in mire,
T’ spring up like mushrooms, and like them expire? [205]
The Cid on Harper’s Ferry made a bold raid,
The Saint o’er Fulton Ferry makes a ti-raid;
In their true parts—the one a blatherskiter,
Th’ other a midnight, outright, downright fighter.
[page 19]
A lecturer by turns, he “saves the Union”— [210]
For fifty cents a night, with seats at premium;
Jests at the blood, the cost of civil strife,
And is quite jocose at the loss of life.
Were telescopic scope given him soon,
He’d find out Slavery in the rising moon; [215]
And should the mountain, big with might and main,
Bring forth in labor a small mouse again,
He’d call it slave—and mountain times much bigger,
Instead of mouse, would christen it a Nigger!
The Cicero or Champion of the crew, [220]
Stands forth in armor to th’ admiring view;
Arm’d with bright points from every brilliant source,
His sharp-steel style might claim a polished source,
Were he not doomed on Nile’s dark shore to dream,
And find a turbid for a classic stream: [225]
[page 20]
Give him the Artic regions to explore,
Where Franklin nobly died, and Kane no more
Shall tread his knightly foot, and ere he gets
To Grinnell’s Land, his barque of Hope upsets;
And for the Esquimaux, he’ll Negroes find, [230]
While leaving you some thousand miles behind.
Go straight to Behring’s or to Behring’s Strait,
And he will leave you there ‘midst ice to wait,
Until he pays a tribute to the Slave,
While he forgets a tribute to the brave. [235]
Expecting something of the Polar Sea, (6)
He’ll cite some case of Modern chivalry;
In which resistance to the Power is right,
Which keeps the Slave in gloom, and you in night.
The Polar Sea is bound in ice, ‘tis true, [240]
But Negro bondage he must keep in view;
[page 21]
And if you’d break, indeed, the Polar Sea,
You first must break the bonds of Slavery.
All this is brought in mirage to the view,
And wrought in colors of pragmatic hue— [245]
Presented to the sight in such a ray,
That when you thought to see th’ Explorers way
Thro’ icebergs, wrecks, heroic scenes, and new,
You find yourself amidst a Negro crew.
A scene from Uncle Tom is given in, [250]
In which you’re told that Slavery’s a sin,
And how the mother, chased by hound and gun,
With her slave babe o’er seas of ice did run.
Instead of being in the Artic Seas,
You find yourself fanned by a Southern breeze. [255]
This is all read in Ciceronian style,
And yet so Doctor Ch-p-n all the while. (7)
[page 22]
He whom the honors of the niche now fills,
Is one who will his way, if that way kills—
Kills Church—kills State—kills Soul—kills Creed [260]
—kills all—
If killing these, the Negro does not fall;
Not fall in price! his market-price is good,
Since in the North the Negro’s daily food,
In great demand—since every White’s a cannibal, [265]
And must eat Black, or eat no food at all.
‘Tis said his native Kings eat him; we know
His Eastern Kings of him make a ragout.
The fiery people, filled with Southern blood,
Eat him alive, and think it dainty food; [270]
But then, they take some time for rest; but here,
He serves for breakfast, dinner, and supper.
Moses th’ Second, with Sermon on the Mount,
Finds out a Negro at the very fount;
[page 23]
“Slavery’s a sin!”—‘tis true—you prove it, [275]
By sinning ev’ry day and Sunday in it.
There’s not a text in Scripture which you quote,
But what you prove you sin in it by rote.
You prove the sin, by turning every phase
Marked out by God to mend your willful ways, [280]
Into a creed of sin, which, to uphold,
You blaspheme Christ, and counsel crimes untold.
On you, that sin is fixed, when you conspire
To urge the bondsman on with pike and fire;
And when on Sundays you convene to pray, [285]
That Southern homes shall perish the next day;
When you defame the land that gave you birth,
And swear no other land so cursed on Earth.
“Slavery’s a sin!” if acts applauded here
Like these, chain souls to such a slavish sphere, [290]
[page 24]
And should be abolished! but first begin
Where Slavery like this is far the vilest sin.
The Modern Moses finds this fearful sin
Beggaring his Church—his Congregation thin;
Finds that it drives to madness ardent minds, [295]
And turns to venom men, whose souls it binds;
Finds that the Word of God is more despised
Than the poor slave whose sluggish mind is prized;
Finds that the noblest feelings of the heart
Are forced to war, or play a dastard’s part; [300]
Finds that the gentlest natures may be turned
Into the grossest furies ever spurned;
Finds that the rights of Country, Clime and Laws,
Can be outraged, and find a base applause;
Finds that a people bound by every tie, [305]
Except the Negroes—should ignobly die,
[page 25]
And that to live in such a land as ours,
Should deep consign us to the infernal powers;
Finds that our people are a set of traitors,
And all the world a set of Negro-haters, [310]
Who, if we don’t get rid of our disgrace,
Will wipe or whip us from the human race;
Finds that the preachers of Old England all,
Have oft proclaimed we have no souls at all,
Else we’d be doubly damned—first on this Earth, [315]
Then to the shades beyond our mortal birth;
Finds that Exeter and Stafford Hall
Will batter down our Constitution’s wall,
And play the devil with our underground,
If no more railroads under way be found; [320]
Finds that the Union’s breaking up in pieces,
And that the English held us firm—in lassos—
As much the slaves of Britain now, in fact,
As we were held before the tea and stamp act;
[page 26]
Finds that the South is but a little spot, [325]
And that the North grasps all that little’s got;
That if Cotton now is King of Southern people,
Nigger is God on every Northern steeple;
Finds, in short, that Black is white and whiter,
And ev’ry light mulatto a shade lighter; [330]
That all the population of our friends
Beyond the Border Line in olive blends,
And quite o’erlooks the reason very obvious,
Why Black now olive is, and White’s oblivious.
Well, I will tell you! since the fearful raid, [335]
Which Eastern Preachers, Peddlers, Teachers made
Across the Negro States, some years back,
The color of the race is not so black!
[page 27]
This gipsy crew of motley Northern gentry
Have sadly changed the color of the country; [340]
And if they failed to prove that white was dark,
They have not failed to leave their Native mark!
This other sin of Slav’ry I would hint
To all this crew to take up without stint;
Then send the plate with psalm and pray’r around, [345]
To free those Negroes which the North hath bound!
Say not the trade’s abolished North; it grows—
The trade in slaves—as every Tribune shows!
Those Northern bales of cotton—the mail bags—
Ship off by millions Negroes piled in rags; [350]
And seizing th’ Tribune in Virginia’s State,
Was but the capture of a little freight!
The Negro sells their paper; and in turn
They sell the Negro—and their money earn!
[page 28]
It’s a fair business; only in the land [355]
Where Negroes breed, the trade is contraband!
Why should not th’ pirates of these outlaw prints
Rail when another at its horror squints?
It would their bus’ness stop; and here ‘tis free—
The only freedom in the Blacks we see. [360]
These cunning Yankees have an eye to trade,
And make a penny when a bargain’s made.
They break no laws—of int’rest—that’s quite sure,
And only break, when they can make no more;
And keep the Ten Commandments, every one, [365]
And preach the Gospel till ‘tis overdone.
They crowd the pulpit, press, the bar and bench,
And every freedom from the people wrench—
[page 29]
Denounce all customs diff’ring from their own,
And puff themselves while preaching others down. [370]
All the virtue, all the mind they claim,
Which in this curséd land doth yet remain.
If their standard’s right—why, Heaven forbid
That aught should question what they have is hid!
The glory of the Empire City’s reign [375]
They would link to “Athens” with a Negro chain,
And bind a cord around her regal neck,
To bend to Boston at its every beck—
A line of wires of telegraphic stuff,
To make us sneeze when “Athens” takes her snuff. [380]
When “Athens” gives a frigid dinner party,
These flunkies here must cheer the laughter hearty;
If Holmes gets home a wee-wee witticism,
‘Way goes a column of Tribune criticism!
[page 30]
If Lowell bores a worthy stranger there [385]
With dismal rhymes, which make him wince and
stare;
Or Wendell Phillips finds a running thought,
(A fugitive idea his head has caught;)
Or Emerson concocts a crude effusion, [390]
The Tribune adds its own to their diffusion.
Their noblest men they’ve hunted to the grave,
And sold their souls to Mammon and the Slave!
Webster they still pursue, th’ in his tomb,
His shade could crush them in its silent gloom! [395]
They called themselves the “Athens” of the land,
And Emerson the “Plato” of their band;
The classic grounds on which such honors rest,
Is where they slander and proscribe their best!
[page 31]
Everett they basely hunt, and would destroy, [400]
But where they hope to wound, they but annoy;
The proud defender of a land ingrate,
Who, while adorning, yet redeems his State!
The great high Prelate of the Pantheon throng,
In turn now comes to take his niche among; [405]
Who counts no danger when his cause he fights—
Who learns a plot of treason and of crime—
Then basely wanders to some foreign clime,
Is told in secret of some bloody deed,
Fears to betray some slave or soul ingrate, [410]
But fears not betrayal of the Fed’ral State—
Preaches Disunion in a rural town,
Then in the Senate cries Disunion down.
If high in place, to foes he bends the knee—
[page 32]
A demagogue to those of low degree— [415]
Time-serving all, and yet no slave is he!
A Statesman of the school of servile isms,
All colors black viewed through his many prisms;
A platitudinarian, smooth, precise,
Whose speeches dull are fricasseed in ice! [420]
His milk-and-water, freezing on the ear,
Melts quick to blood, when from the Forum’s chair
Indorses Helper, and pronounces light
The plan of cutting throats as something right!
Five hundred thousand heads, or so, was all [425]
Marat required to mark an Empire’s fall;
Three hundred thousand Southern throats, well
hacked,
The Marat of the hour demands, well backed.
[page 33]
Cut all their throats—that is the Helper creed, [430]
Indorsed by S-w-d, and upheld by W-d!
A full-grown harvest of the Southern set,
Whose scythe of slaughter is the knife well whet—
A pike and torch in every Negro’s hand,
To kill the master and lay waste the land! [435]
Proclaim such doctrines! speed to servile lands,
Be caught by flatt’rs and their fawning bands.
Strangers to right, or sympathy with race,
They love the heart which hates a Southern face!
Bowed down by famine and in fetters born, [440]
The whites among them, whom they hold in scorn,
They have a pliant ear for every cry
That’s borne from Afric’s shore or Southern sky!
[page 34]
Slaves to revilers of a gallant clime,
They greet the sland’rer in their giant crime, [445]
Encouraging in act, in word, the deed,
Which, to behold, would their own heart-strings
bleed!
Concoct great crimes o’er bowls of great Bohea—
Drink draughts of blood while sipping cups of [450]
tea—
Think nothing of the pangs in social sipping,
Endured by those who in their blood lie dripping!
Discourse on Beauty at a rout or ball,
The theme would turn upon the Negro all; [455]
Speak of Longfellow, or of Edgar Poe,
They’d ask you whether their face was black or
No!
[page 35]
The point would turn—if rose—Evangeline,
Whether her nose was flat or acquiline! [460]
Like people gazing at the heaven-lit sun,
When, by eclipse, its light is overrun,
They use burnt glass to mark at every gaze
Our country’s spots seen on its sun-lit blaze!
Here the vile traitors of our Nation’s fate [465]
Go to distract, and on its faults dilate;
Point out the errors of its early stage,
And show the blot on every erring page;
Proclaim its wrongs to every gaping clown,
Lay bear its wounds to every tyrant crown, [470]
Receive their smiles for homage, and receive
Their pity for the crimes their souls aggrieve!
[page 36]
Ladies forget their sister’s wrongs, and deep
In silks and satins o’er the Negro weep,
Whose sorrows, should they not abate too soon, [475]
Will center round the Dying Octoroon!
Soon here, as there, the fashions all will rage,
And we will mark the change at every stage;
The belles will wear great puffs of wooly hair,
And beaux will dash along with Sambo’s air! [480]
The North will all repudiate its cotton,
And naught that’s South be left to get, or get
on;
For all our Southern staple, Irish linen,
Will then be all the girls will have to get in! [485]
Silks from the Indies will be worn instead
Of cotton skirts and petticoats of red;