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Jupiter Hammon’s Christmas Poem

by Michael Curtis

1761 was a slow, yet interesting year for poetry. The imposter Macpherson announced the discovery of Ossian’s Gaelic Epic and the collected works of the rotted rake Wilmot, Earl of Rochester was published. Romantic passion was seeded, and creative destruction was soon to grow in Europe.

America was mostly quiet, Bradstreet’s classically polished, devotional volume had been published a decade earlier, but mostly our preachers, artists, and politicians released broadsides in the well measured manner of Alexander Pope.

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The Universal Prayer

(stanzas 1 through 4)

by Alexander Pope

Father of all! in every age,
__In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
__Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood:
__Who all my sense confined
To know but this—that thou art good,
__And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
__To see the good from ill;
And binding Nature fast in fate,
__Left free the human will.

What conscience dictates to be done,
__Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than Hell to shun,
__That, more than Heaven pursue.

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Pope and others of the Augustan poets would have been known to the Evangelist preacher and slave, Jupiter Hammon (1711 – c.1806). Like Pope who was taught to read and write by his aunt, Hammon was taught reading and writing by the Lloyds within whose family he was raised. Pope was trained to better know and serve culture, Hammon was trained to know and better serve Christ. The Romantic infection had yet to touch we colonists, and this the reason that our battle for political liberty was civilized while Europe’s liberations were murderous revolutions. But that is a different story. This story concerns the verse of Christendom, the grace by which man ascended from barbarism through slavery to free will.

Phillis Wheatley (1753 – 1784) was captured in Africa by tribal slavers, shipped to and sold in British America. Wheatley was better educated than Hammon. Wheatley, who assumed her Boston family’s name, was taught Greek and Latin (reading both by the age of 12), and Biblical textual criticism. Her first poem, “To the University of Cambridge [Harvard], in New England” was composed when she was 14. By the age of 15 she addressed King George II:

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Your subjects hope, dread Sire–
The crown upon your brows may flourish long,
And that your arm may in your God be strong!
O may your sceptre num’rous nations sway,
And all with love and readiness obey!
…

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Her first book was published while she was in London (1773, year of the Boston Tea Party) and there might have met the king if not for the necessity of an early return. Soon after return to our colony, Wheatley composed a poem on coming to grace, “On being brought from Africa to America”:

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‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic dye.”
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

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Famous and bold by 1776, Wheatley wrote to George Washington, “His Excellency General Washington.” Here the final stanza:

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Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! Be thine.

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Washington admired the poem. So too did Hammon, who in the troubling days of our War for Independence, offered insight and advice in his second broadside poem, “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley.” Here stanza’s 1 – 6 of 21:

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I
O come you pious youth! Adore
__The wisdom of thy God,
In bringing thee from distant shore,
__To learn His holy word.
(Eccles. xii.)

II
Thou mightst been left behind
__Amidst a dark abode;
God’s tender mercy still combin’d,
__Thou hast the holy word.
(Psal. cxxxv, 2, 3.)

III
Fair wisdom’s ways are paths of peace,
__And they that walk therein,
Shall reap the joys that never cease,
__And Christ shall be their king.
(Psal. i, 1,2; Prov. iii, 7.)

IV
God’s tender mercy brought thee here;
__Tost o’er the raging main;
In Christian faith thou hast a share,
__Worth all the gold of Spain.
(Psal. cii, 1, 3, 4.)

V
While thousands tossed by the sea,
__And others settled down,
God’s tender mercy set thee free,
__From dangers that come down.
(Death.)

VI
That thou a pattern still might be,
__To youth of Boston town,
The blessed Jesus set thee free,
__From every sinful wound.
(2 Cor. v, 10.)

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Wheatley died in 1784, a year after the conclusion of the war, poor, yet enjoying both personal and national liberty. Hammon continued in servitude until his death and this in the stoic manner of civilly refined Greek and Roman slaves of the late empire, as we learn in his broadside “Address to the Negroes of the State of New York” (seventh of ten paragraphs):

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Now I acknowledge that liberty is a great thing, and worth seeking for, if we can get it honestly, and by our good conduct, prevail on our masters to set us free: Though for my own part I do not wish to be free, yet I should be glad, if others, especially the young negroes were to be free, for many of us, who are grown up slaves, and have always had masters to take care of us, should hardly know how to take care of ourselves; and it may be more for our own comfort to remain as we are. That liberty is a great thing we may know from our own feelings, and we may likewise Judge so from the conduct of the white-people, in the late war. How much money has been spent, and how many lives has been lost, to defend their liberty. I must say that I have hoped that God would open their eyes, when they were so much engaged for liberty, to think of the state of the poor blacks, and to pity us. He has done it in some measure, and has raised us up many friends, for which we have reason to be thankful, and to hope in his mercy. What may be done further, he only knows, for known unto God are all his ways from the beginning. But this my dear brethren IS by no means, the greatest thing we have to be concerned about. Getting our liberty in this world, is nothing to our having the liberty of the children of God. Now the Bible tells us that we are all by nature, sinners, that we are slaves to sin and Satan, and that unless we are converted, or born again, we must be miserable forever. Christ says, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, and all that do not see the kingdom of God, must be in the kingdom of darkness.

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As Hammon hoped, pity, conscience, and Christian virtue grew generation into generation until all Americans enjoyed national, political, and personal freedom. Yes, there was the necessity of our War to End Slavery, and after this the ruinous importation of European revolution, that Romantic libertinism which infected then killed both Christendom and our independence. Today, we are all in bondage to some self-gratification, slave to some vice, and very, very many are creatures miserably shackled to the destructive liberties of this world. And too, pundits have observed that we are the thralls of a Liberal Leviathan.

Recently, when reading 18th Century English poetry, there appeared a remarkable difference between the verse of Pope and Hammon. Yes, of course, Pope is the more practiced, the more skilled. And too, Pope is the more individual, much in the manner of Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. In both Pope and Wilmot, and in all that became Romantic Enlightenment, everywhere and in everything the “I, I, I,” the will and unsolicited opinion. In Hammon, the “we,” the fealty to God, natural law, and all that follows.

Below is “An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries,” which was written with the following information: “Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Mr. Lloyd of Queen’s Village, on Long Island, the 25th of December, 1760.” Notice: “An Evening Thought” was composed late on Christmas day. And this the cause of my remarks. And here, Hammon’s Christmas poem:

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An Evening Thought. Salvation
by Christ with Penitential Cries

by Jupiter Hammon

Salvation comes by Jesus Christ alone,
__The only Son of God;
Redemption now to every one,
__That love his holy Word.

Dear Jesus we would fly to Thee,
__And leave off every Sin,
Thy Tender Mercy well agree;
__Salvation from our King.

Salvation comes now from the Lord,
__Our victorious King;
His holy Name be well ador’d,
__Salvation surely bring.

Dear Jesus give they Spirit now,
__Thy Grace to every Nation,
That han’t the Lord to whom we bow,
__The Author of Salvation.

Dear Jesus unto Thee we cry,
__Give us the Preparation;
Turn not away thy tender Eye;
__We seek thy true Salvation.

Salvation comes from God we know,
__The true and only One;
It’s well agreed and certain true,
__He gave his only Son.

Lord hear our penitential Cry:
__Salvation from above;
It is the Lord that doth supply,
__With his Redeeming Love.

Dear Jesus by thy precious Blood,
__The World Redemption have:
Salvation now comes from the Lord,
__He being thy captive slave.

Dear Jesus let the Nations cry,
__And all the People say,
Salvation comes from Christ on high,
__Haste on Tribunal Day.

We cry as Sinners to the Lord,
__Salvation to obtain;
It is firmly fixt his holy Word,
__Ye shall not cry in vain.

Dear Jesus unto Thee we cry,
__And make our Lamentation:
O let our Prayers ascend on high;
__We felt thy Salvation.

Lord turn our dark benighted Souls;
__Give us a true Motion,
And let the Hearts of all the World,
__Make Christ their Salvation.

Ten Thousand Angels cry to Thee,
__Yea louder than the Ocean.
Thou art the Lord, we plainly see;
__Thou art the true Salvation.

Now is the Day, excepted Time;
__The Day of Salvation;
Increase your Faith, do no repine:
__Awake ye every Nation.

Lord unto whom now shall we go,
__Or seek a safe Abode;
Thou hast the Word Salvation too
__The only Son of God.

Ho! every one that hunger hath,
__Or pineth after me,
Salvation be thy leading Staff,
__To set the Sinner free.

Dear Jesus unto Thee we fly;
__Depart, depart from Sin,
Salvation doth at length supply,
__The Glory of our King.

Come ye Blessed of the Lord,
__Salvation greatly given;
O turn your Hearts, accept the Word,
__Your Souls are fit for Heaven.

Dear Jesus we now turn to Thee,
__Salvation to obtain;
Our Hearts and Souls do meet again,
__To magnify thy Name.

Come holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,
__The Object of our Care;
Salvation doth increase our Love;
__Our Hearts hath felt thy fear.

Now Glory be to God on High,
__Salvation high and low;
And thus the Soul on Christ rely,
__To Heaven surely go.

Come Blessed Jesus, Heavenly Dove,
__Accept Repentance here;
Salvation give, with tender Love;
__Let us with Angels share.

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Michael Curtis is an architect, sculptor, painter, historian, and poet, who is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Common Sense Society. He has for more than 40 years contributed to the revival of the classical arts. He has taught and lectured at universities, colleges, and museums, including The Institute of Classical Architecture, The National Gallery of Art, et cetera; his pictures and statues are housed in over four hundred private and public collections, including The Library of Congress, The Supreme Court, et alibi; his verse has been published in over twenty journals; his work in the visual arts can be found at TheClassicalArtist.com, and his literary work can be found at TheStudioBooks.com.