White Man's Burden.net

The Black Man's Burden
By John White Chadwick - 1905

Take up the black man's burden!
Not his across the seas,
But his who grows your cotton,
And sets your heart at ease,

When to the sodden rice fields
Your children dare not go,
Nor brave the heat that singes like
The foundry's fiery glow.

Take up the black man's burden!
He helped to share your own
On many a scene by battle-clouds
Portentously o'erblown;

On Wagner's awful parapet,
As late where Shafter's plan
Was for the boys to take the lead,
He showed himself a man.

Take up the black man's burden!
'T is heavy with the weight
Of old ancestral taint, the curse
Of new-engendered hate;

The scorn of those who throw to him
Their table's meanest crust--
Children of those who made him serve
Their idleness and lust.

Take up the black man's burden!
When you were out for votes,
His geese--they all were swans to you,
And sheep were all his goats.

'T was "Pompey this" and "Pompey that,"
And "Pompey, bless your heart!"
But it's "Devil take you, Pompey!" now
You play the lion's part.

Take up the black man's burden!
If you have got a brief
For all the suffering of the earth,
To give them swift relief;

Don't let the millions here at home,
Whose bonds you struck away,
Learn from your heedlessness to cry,
"Give back the evil day!"

Take up the black man's burden!
O black men, unto you
The summons is, when those forget
Who should be kind and true!

Put not your trust in such as boast
Straight hair and paler skin;
Their duty calls them otherwhere.
Fight your own fight and--win.

Take up the black man's burden!
Poor patient folk and tame--
The heritage of cursing,
Of foolishness and blame.