Just then she reach'd with trembling step,

Her aged mother's door

"He's gone!" she cried; " and I shall see That angel-face no more.

"I feel, I feel this breaking heart

Beat high against my side—”

From her white arm down sunk her head;
She shivering sigh'd, and died.

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MALLET.

CRAZY JANE.

OCCASIONED BY A LADY'S BEING ALARMED AT A
MAD WOMAN KNOWN BY THAT APPELLATION.

WHY, fair maid, in every feature
Are such signs of fear express'd ?
Can a wandering, wretched creature

With such terror fill thy breast ?
Do my phrensied looks alarm thee?

Trust me, sweet, thy fears are vain: Not for kingdoms would I harm thee; Shun not then poor Crazy Jane. Dost thou weep to see my anguish ? Mark me, and avoid my woe;

When men flatter, sigh, and languish,

Think them false; I found them so;

For I loved; Oh! so sincerely

None could ever love again;

But the youth I loved so dearly,

Stole the wits of Crazy Jane.

Fondly my young heart received him,

Which was doom'd to love but one;

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He sigh'd, he vow'd, and I believed him;

He was false, and I undone.

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From that hour has Reason never

Held her empire o'er my brain;
Henry fled: with him for ever
Fled the wits of Crazy Jane.

Now forlorn and broken-hearted,
And with phrenzied thoughts beset,
On that spot where last we parted,
On that spot where first we met,
Still I sing my love-lorn ditty,
Still I slowly pace the plain;
While each passer-by, in pity,

Cries, "God help thee, Crazy Jane!"

LEWIS.

THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT.

FORCED from home and all its pleasures,
Afric's coast I left forlorn,

To increase the stranger's treasures,
O'er the raging billows borne.

Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;

But, though slave they have enroll'd me,
Minds are never to be sold.

Still in thought as free as ever,

What are England's rights, I ask,

Me from my delights to sever,
Me to torture, me to task?

Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit Nature's claim;

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Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Think, ye masters, iron-hearted, Lolling at your jovial boards; Think how many backs have smarted For the sweet your cane affords.

Is there, as ye sometimes tell us,

Is there One who reigns on high?
Has He bid you buy and sell us,

Speaking from His throne, the sky ?
Ask Him, if your knotted Scourges,
Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
Agents of His will to use?

Hark! He answers-wild tornadoes,
Strewing yonder sea with wrecks,
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
Are the voice with which He speaks.
He, foreseeing what vexations

Afric's sons should undergo,

Fix'd their tyrants' habitations

Where His whirlwinds answer

-No.

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By our blood in Afric wasted,

Ere our necks received the chain; By the miseries that we tasted, Crossing, in your barks, the main;

THE ROSE.

By our sufferings, since ye brought us
To the man-degrading mart,
All sustain'd by patience, taught us
Only by a broken heart;

Deem our nation brutes no longer,

Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard, and stronger
Than the colour of our kind.
Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings
Tarnish all your boasted powers,
Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!

COWPER.

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THE ROSE.

THE rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower, Which Mary to Anna convey'd ;

The plentiful moisture encumber'd the flower

And weigh'd down its beautiful head.

The cup was all fill'd, and the leaves were all wet, 5
And it seem'd, to a fanciful view,

To weep for the buds it had left with regret
On the flourishing bush where it grew.

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was

For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd,
And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas!
I snapp'd it; it fell to the ground.

"And such," I exclaim'd, "is the pitiless part
Some act by the delicate mind,
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart
Already to sorrow resign'd.

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"This elegant rose, had I shaken it less,

Might have bloom'd with its owner awhile; And the tear, that is wiped with a little address, May be follow'd, perhaps, by a smile."

COWPER.

THE BEGGAR'S PETITION.

PITY the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;

Oh! give relief; and Heaven will bless your store. These tatter'd clothes my poverty bespeak,

These hoary locks proclaim my lengthen'd years: And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek Has been a channel to a flood of tears.

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my road; 10

Yon house, erected on the rising ground,
With tempting aspect drew me from
For Plenty there a residence has found,
And Grandeur a magnificent abode :
(Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor:)
Here as I craved a morsel of their bread,

A pamper'd menial drove me from the door,
To seek a shelter in a humbler shed.

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Oh! take me to your hospitable dome;

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold: Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,

For I am poor and miserably old.

Should I reveal the sources of my grief,

If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast, Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, And tears of pity would not be represt.

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