Brandishing diagrams of a trade ship’s
bowels—bent, black bodies jammed in columns
like burnt corn kernels—you challenged plump, rich
lords in Parliament, battled a solemn
quarter century, abolished slave trade
in Britain but not slavery, then fought
sugar plantation barons two decades
before seeing the beast’s fierce blaze snuffed out
three days before you died from common flu,
Barbara at your Highwood bed, casket
carried to London, laid by your fellow
William Pitt in Westminster’s North Transept,
your seated statue raised there. Tourists file
by it, viewing the abbey’s north choir aisle.
Roger Armbrust
November 14, 2007
