Stroud Scarlet

                                        Colouring the Globe Stroud Scarlet Red

You can see the strange fruits of slavery

In classical, elegant, Clifton:

All ship-shape and Bristol fashion,

Honey-stone Age of Enlightenment,

Reason, proportion and symmetry –

But not even those straight lines

Can hide the triangles of trafficking,

Empire, expansion and aggrandisement;

And whether trade followed the flag

Or flag followed trade is immaterial

To the story of capital expansion,

In the 18^th century’s Grand Tour,

When Britannia Ruled the Waves,

Thanks to press-ganged jolly Jack Tars,

Stroud Scarlet, Uley Blue and Berkeley Yellow.

Watch those explorers canoeing Canada,

Trading Stroud Scarlet with the Iroquois,

When fair exchange was no robbery

For the Hudson Bay Company,

Or for the East India Company too;

See that Stroud Scarlet cloth,

Stretched out on tenterhooks in our fields,

Eventually shipped down to West Africa,

Its folds concealing any human cargo.

Admire General Wolfe and his red coats,

Up there on the steps of Quebec,

A few short years after riding down

Stroud Scarlet weavers in the streets and fields:

“Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves,

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”