John Greenleaf Whittier’s Poems

Douglass twice refers to significant excerpts of the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier, which themselves allude to the Bible. First, in chapter eight, the reader finds Douglass referring to Whittier as “the slave’s poet” and applying The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother (see “The Ark of the Covenant“) to his grandmother’s own experience. Then, in chapter 11, Douglass calls on the first four stanzas of Whittier’s Clerical Oppressors (see “The Lord’s Prayer 2“) as he laments the existence of those calling themselves Christian and “yet in union with slaveholders.”