Sold! A Woman's Protest
“You and I know that Woman Suffrage means Free Love” H.G. [Horace Greeley]
Insulter of all Womanhood and
Apostate from our holy path
That dares aspire to broader good,‚
Lured by ambition’s specreal wraith
He turns from Freedom’s battling van
To break the rod of guardian laws
And lead the bloody Ku Klux Klan
Last hope of Treason’s long Lost Cause.
No harp that feels a human’s hand
For him shall vibrate into song.
No heart a Mother’s hopes expand
Shall spare him one to speed his throng;
Pure wives & daughters true as steel,
For him who brands his own with shame
May hush the loathing that they feel,
But never cheer his fallen name!
Her soul that rodownse with faith sublime
From bleak Fire Island’s stormy coast
Looks down upon this wreck of time
Pale scorn, a sad indignant ghost.
Turn hearts of tender, light gave out
Like stars in deeper day, whom well
He knew to honor, faint for doubt
In the bright fields of asphodel.
Our struggling Virtue—once that fled
From lawless power and wicked law
To that free heart,—?? Sickening dread
To find it fail in one dark hour!
A shudder of impending woe
Runs thrilling through the bondman’s heart
To see his unrepentant foe
Led up by Freedom’s olden guest.
Go, fallen from her starry arch,
Uncheered by loyal hearts, alone
Tread backward your apostate march
To shameful loss as shameful throne!
No woman’s hope nor woman’s prayer
Speed forth your Allies’ evil throng,
Nor woman’s throat impulse the air
With stirring word as rallying song!
- Title
- Sold! A Woman's Protest
- First Line
- Insulter of all Womanhood and
- Creator
-
George Shepard Burleigh
- Bibliographic Citation
- George S. Burleigh Papers, 1825-1902. John Hay Library, Brown University. Miscellaneous Manuscripts, "Sa-Sp folder," HA 978
- Date
- 1872
- Subject
- Reconstruction
-
Abolition
-
Freedmen, Aid to
-
Suffrage, Woman
-
Women's Rights
- Horace Greeley
- Margaret Fuller
- Comments
- Epigram at top - a quote from then-presidential candidate Horace Greeley - makes clear the context of the poem: “You and I know that Woman Suffrage means Free Love” H.G. (Horace Greeley)
- This poem - apparently unpublished - is some of George S. Burleigh's most incisive political writing post-Civil War. The verse about Margaret Fuller is particularly important, as it shows that GSB was aware of the feminist intellectual lineage through her. Perhaps Ruth Burgess Burleigh was assisting him here?
- Cartoon by Thomas Nast - Public Domain
- Rating
- ★★★★

