Down to the city I carry my wax and canvas (1)
There’s a gathering of people all around this new house
A mixture of colour that I could never imagine
Fixed in my mind is a red I wish to recreate

A man with a tall hat stands and points with fury (2)
Fellows three feet away do not know how to speak to him
but in their sentiments they are for the same thing
For there are many white women talking to black men (3)

A stone gets thrown and a scream from a gentle lady (4)
A cheer from a portion of rabble but the gentleman isn’t stirring
Serene in his rage and composed like a portrait
The sounds of the voices are starting to rise like a chamber

A young boy pisses in the door and the laughter rings out
The sky is covered in a grey and purple glow now
and without signal windows smash and the door goes down
Men pour in with a shout of “hunt them down”

We’re out at Pennsylvania Hall
Four days and it’s gone (5)
We’re all watching on
Watching on

A crack in the gas pipe spills out a hiss like a low snake
A white light blinds out the windows and the awe of the gasp breaks
Yellow licks write out words in the sky like prophecy
The ending of all that we have built in its inevitability

Running like fools from the hall, they’re beaten as they go
Men parrot phrases they took from a sheet to make them feel bold
The crack and the crumble that tumbles down from this deathly show
If I could just capture the smoke before it swallows up the brick and the bone

The hose is directed upon the building next door (6)
Cheers rise up as the flames do the same as it falls to the floor
The fear and the glee in the faces are mixing up the colours and the sound
I’ve been in the city but a month now it’s burning down

The lick and the flick of the sparks spill out from the scene to the page
The gentleman’s gone now the laughter and noise follows out from the stage
Who can imagine the terror - is this the start or the end?
Oh what a thrill, what a fright, this modern world wills to be free of the night

Merchants, tailors, weavers and all
Draymen, stevedores, the rich and the poor

Gather round the glow of the fiery furnace
Revel in destruction, feed the flames
Business is business - we all shake hands
We’re tied to the binding cord

back to workshop, back to the factory
back to the dock with a cheer
back to the press with its dark black print
pushed to the paper so clear

The voices are deafening

Footnotes

(1) John Caspar Wild, a Swiss-born painter who had recently returned to Philadelphia. His lithograph of Pennsylvania Hall’s destruction can be seen on the poster for this evening’s event.
(2) The ‘tall hat’ indicates the rioters included men of ‘property and standing’: violence transcended class.
(3) Fear of racial mixing – ‘amalgamation’ – ran deep in white society.
(4) Women played a leading role in the abolitionist movement: the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women met in the doomed Hall.
(5) The Hall was destroyed just four days after its official opening.
(6) Philadelphia’s firemen were made up of companies of volunteers, many of whom opposed abolitionists and made little effort to save the Hall.