Remember Them that Are in Bonds
Background Notes
As part of their campaign, abolitionists compiled and published books of readings aimed at schoolchildren and youth. Readers commonly used in the schools contained passages of poetry to be memorized and recited. This is a short antislavery poem designed to be recited in antislavery society meetings and in schools with sympathetic teachers.
Transcription of Primary Source
Christian mother! when thy prayer
Trembles on the twilight air,
And thou askest God to keep,
In their waking and their sleep,
Those, whose love is more to thee
Than the wealth of land or sea,—
Think of those who wildly mourn
For the loved ones from them torn!
Christian daughter, sister, wife!
Ye, who wear a guarded life!
Ye, whose bliss hangs not, thank God!
On a tyrant’s word or nod!
Will ye hear with careless eye,
Of the wild despairing cry,
Rising up from human hearts,
As their latest bliss departs?
Blest ones! Whom no hands on earth
Dare to wrench from home and hearth,
Ye, whose hearts are sheltered well,
By affection’s holy spell,
Oh! forget not those, for whom
Life is nought but changeless gloom,
O’er whose days, so woe−begone,
Hope may paint no brighter dawn!