"THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN" by Hubert Henry Harrison

Tonight, I fished reading WHEN AFRICA AWAKES by Hubert Henry Harrison (1920, 1998), where this powerful poetic parody closes it! "The Black Man�s Burden (A Reply to Rudyard Kipling) in When Africa Awakes (New York, 1920) Take up the Black Man�s burden--- Send forth the worst ye breed, And bind our sons in shackles To serve your selfish greed; To wait in heavy harness Be-devilled and beguiled Until the Fates remove you From a world you have defiled. Take up the black Man�s burden--- Your lies may still abide To veil the threat of terror And check our racial pride; Your cannon, church and courthouse May still our sons constrain To seek the white man�s profit And work the white man�s gain. Take up the Black Man�s burden--- Reach out and hog the earth, And leave your workers hungry In the country of their birth; Then, when your goal is nearest, The end for which you fought Watch other�s trained efficiency Bring all your hope to naught. Take up the Black Man�s burden--- Reduce their chiefs and kings To toil of serf and sweeper The lot of common things: Sodden their soil with slaughter, Ravish their lands with lead; Go, sign them with your living And seal them with your dead. Take up the Black Man�s burden--- And reap your old reward; The curse of those ye cozen, The hate of those ye barred From your Canadian cities And your Australian ports; And when they ask for meat and drink Go, girdle them with forts. Take up the Black Man�s burden--- Ye cannot stoop to less. Will not your fraud of "freedom" Still cloak your greediness? But, by the gods ye worship, And by the deeds ye do, These silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your gods and you. Take up the Black Man�s burden--- Until the tail is told, Until the balances of hate Bear down the beam of gold. And while ye wait remember The justice, though delayed Will hold you as her debtor Till the Black Man�s debt is paid."