Sweet was the vision—­but alas! 
  However in prospectus bright and sunny,
To bring such visionary scenes to pass
  One thing was requisite, and that was—­money! 
Money, that pays the laundress and her bills,
For socks and collars, shirts and frills,
Cravats and kerchiefs—­money, without which
The negroes must remain as dark as pitch;
  A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery,
To think of millions of immortal souls
Dwelling in bodies black as coals,
  And living—­so to speak—­in Satan’s livery!

Money—­the root of evil,—­dross, and stuff! 
  But oh! how happy ought the rich to feel,
Whose means enable them to give enough
  To blanch an African from head to heel! 
How blessed—­yea, thrice blessed—­to subscribe
    Enough to scour a tribe! 
  While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one,
Although he gave but pence, how sweet to know
He helped to bleach a Hottentot’s great toe,
    Or little one!

Moved by this logic, or appall’d,
  To persons of a certain turn so proper,
The money came when call’d,
  In silver, gold, and copper,
Presents from “Friends to blacks,” or foes to whites,
“Trifles,” and “offerings,” and “widows’ mites,”
Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions,
    With other gifts
    And charitable lifts,
Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. 
  As thus—­Elisha Brettel,
    An iron kettle. 
    The Dowager Lady Scannel,
    A piece of flannel. 
    Rebecca Pope,
    A bar of soap. 
    The Misses Howels,
    Half-a-dozen towels. 
    The Master Rush’s,
    Two scrubbing-brushes. 
    Mr. T. Groom,
    A stable broom,
    And Mrs. Grubb,
    A tub.

Great were the sums collected! 
And great results in consequence expected. 
  But somehow, in the teeth of all endeavor,
    According to reports
    At yearly courts,
  The blacks, confound them! were as black as ever!

Yes! spite of all the water sous’d aloft,
Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft,
Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand,
Brooms, brushes, palm of hand,
And scourers in the office strong and clever,
  In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing,
  The routing and the grubbing,
The blacks, confound them! were as black as ever!

In fact in his perennial speech,
The Chairman own’d the niggers did not bleach,
    As he had hoped. 
    From being washed and soaped,
A circumstance he named with grief and pity;
  But still he had the happiness to say,
    For self and the Committee,
By persevering in the present way
And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day,
  Although he could not promise perfect white,
  From certain symptoms that had come to light,
He hoped in time to get them gray!