A Parody (Heavenly Union) by Frederick Douglass: Poems ESL Listening

(TESOL Worksheets--Poems ESL Listening)

Transcript: docs, pub, slideshow: slides, pub

Video: HERE

[Notes: This is a parody of the hymn The Heavenly Union.  I encountered it at the end of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  It's slightly unclear from the text , but I don't think Frederick Douglass was the actual author of this parody--I think he was just borrowing it.]

A Parody (Heavenly Union): poems

Video: https://youtu.be/AMo8rJv69u4

Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell

How pious priests whip Jack and Nell,

And women buy and children sell,

And preach all sinners down to hell,

And sing of heavenly union.

They’ll bleat and baa, dona like goats,

Gorge down black sheep, and strain at motes,

Array their backs in fine black coats,

Then seize their negroes by their throats,

And choke, for heavenly union.

They’ll church you if you sip a dram,

And damn you if you steal a lamb;

Yet rob old Tony, Doll, and Sam,

Of human rights, and bread and ham;

Kidnapper’s heavenly union.

They’ll loudly talk of Christ’s reward,

And bind his image with a cord,

And scold, and swing the lash abhorred,

And sell their brother in the Lord

To handcuffed heavenly union.

They’ll read and sing a sacred song,

And make a prayer both loud and long,

And teach the right and do the wrong,

Hailing the brother, sister throng,

With words of heavenly union.

We wonder how such saints can sing,

Or praise the Lord upon the wing,

Who roar, and scold, and whip, and sting,

And to their slaves and mammon cling,

In guilty conscience union.

They’ll raise tobacco, corn, and rye,

And drive, and thieve, and cheat, and lie,

And lay up treasures in the sky,

By making switch and cowskin fly,

In hope of heavenly union.

They’ll crack old Tony on the skull,

And preach and roar like Bashan bull,

Or braying ass, of mischief full,

Then seize old Jacob by the wool,

And pull for heavenly union.

A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief,

Who lived on mutton, veal, and beef,

Yet never would afford relief

To needy, sable sons of grief,

Was big with heavenly union.

“Love not the world,” the preacher said,

And winked his eye, and shook his head;

He seized on Tom, and Dick, and Ned,

Cut short their meat, and clothes, and bread,

Yet still loved heavenly union.

Another preacher whining spoke

Of One whose heart for sinners broke:

He tied old Nanny to an oak,

And drew the blood at every stroke,

And prayed for heavenly union.

Two others oped their iron jaws,

And waved their children-stealing paws;

There sat their children in gewgaws;

By stinting negroes’ backs and maws,

They kept up heavenly union.

All good from Jack another takes,

And entertains their flirts and rakes,

Who dress as sleek as glossy snakes,

And cram their mouths with sweetened cakes;

And this goes down for union.”