Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

To stones by epitaphs: be call'd great master
In the loose rhimes of every poetaster:
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives:
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.

Welcome pure thoughts, welcome ye silent groves, These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves:

Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My chearful anthems to the gladsome spring:
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears;
Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn t' affect an holy melancholy;
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again.

THE SLAVES.

An Elegy.

If late I paused upon the twilight plain

Of Fontenoy, to weep the free-born brave; Sure fancy now may cross the western main, And melt in sadder pity for the slave.

Lo! where to yon plantation drooping goes, The sable herd of human kind, while near Stalks a pale despot, and around him throws The scourge that wakes-that punishes the

tear.

O'er the far beach the mournful murmurer strays,
And joins the rude yell of the tumbling tide,
As faint they labour in the solar blaze,
To feed the luxury of British pride!

E'en at this moment, on the burning gale
Floats the weak wailing of the female tongue:

And can that sex's softness nought avail

Must naked woman shriek amid the throng?

O cease to think, my soul! what thousands die By suicide, and toils extreme despair: Thousands, who never rais'd to heaven the eye, Thousands, who fear'd no punishment, but there.

Are drops of blood the horrible manure
That fills with luscious juice the teeming cane?
And must our fellow-creatures thus endure,
For traffick vile, the indignity of pain?

Yes, their keen sorrows are the sweets we blend
With the green beverage of our morning meal,
The while to love meek mercy we pretend,
Or for fictitious ills affect to feel.

Yes, 'tis their anguish mantles in the bowl, Their sighs excite the Briton's drunken joy; Those ignorant suff'rers know not of a soul, That we enlighten'd may its hopes destroy.

And there are men, who leaning on the laws, What they have purchas'd claim a right to hold

Cursed be the tenure, and cursed its cruel causeFreedom's a dearer property than gold!

And there are men, with shameless front have said, That nature form'd the negroes for disgrace; That on their limbs subjection is display'dThe doom of slavery stampt upon their face.'

Send your stern gaze from Lapland to the Line, And every region's natives fairly scan,

Their forms, their force, their faculties combine, And own the vast variety of man!

Then why suppose yourself the chosen few,
To deal oppression's poison'd arrows round,
To gall with iron bonds the weaker crew,

Enforce the labour, and inflict the wound?

'Tis sordid interest guides you; bent on gain,
In profit only can ye reason find;
And pleasure too :-but urge no more in vain,
The selfish subject to the social mind.

Ah! how can he, whose daily lot is grief,
Whose mind is vilified beneath the rod,
Suppose his Maker has for him relief?

Can he believe the tongue that speaks of God?

For when he sees the female of his heart,
And his loved daughters torn by lust away,
His sons, the poor inheritors of smart-
-Had he religion, think ye he could pray?

Alas! he steals him from the loathsome shed, What time moist midnight blows her venom'd breath,

And musing, how he long has toil'd and bled,

Drinks the dire balsam of consoling deatir!

Haste, haste, ye winds, on swiftest pinions fly,
Ere from this world of misery he go,
Tell him his wrongs bedew a nation's eye,
Tell him, Britannia blushes for his woe!

Say that in future, negroes shall be blest, Rank'd e'en as men, and men's just rights enjoy ;

Be neither sold, nor purchased, nor oppress'd, No grief shall wither, and no stripes destroy.

Say that fair freedom bends her holy flight
To cheer the infant, and console the sire;
So shall he wondering prove at last delight,
And in a throb of extacy expire.

Then shall proud Albion's crown, where laurels twine.

Torn from the bosom of the raging sea,

Boast 'midst the glorious leaves, a gem divine,

The radiant gem of pure humanity!

« AnteriorContinuar »