This china that decks the alcove, Has ne'er been revealed to us yet: All these are not half that I owe Benignity, friendship, and truth; 35 40 45 To wish thee fairer is no need, More prudent, or more sprightly, Or more ingenious, or more freed From temper-flaws unsightly. What favour then not yet possessed Can I for thee require, To thy whole heart's desire? 5 10 None here is happy but in part: There dwells some wish in every heart, 15 That wish on some fair future day, ('Tis blameless, be it what it may) THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. FORCED from home and all its pleasures, To increase a stranger's treasures, O'er the raging billows borne. 20 Men from England bought and sold me, 5 But, though slave they have enrolled me, 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? ΙΟ Fleecy locks and black complexion Dwells in white and black the same. Why did all-creating Nature Make the plant for which we toil? Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, Matches, blood-extorting screws, Hark! He answers-Wild tornadoes, Strewing yonder sea with wrecks, Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, Afric's sons should undergo, By our blood in Afric wasted, -'No.' Ere our necks received the chain; Crossing in your barks the main; 15 20 25 30 35 40 By the miseries that we tasted, By our sufferings, since ye brought us 45 All sustained by patience, taught us Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor.' [OVID, Metamorph. vii. 20.] 50 55 I OWN I am shocked at the purchase of slaves, I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea! Besides, if we do, the French, Dutch, and Danes Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest, His comrades had plotted an orchard to rob, And asked him to go and assist in the job. He was shocked, sir, like you, and answered-'Oh no! 25 'You speak very fine, and you look very grave, They spoke, and Tom pondered-'I see they will go: 30 Poor man! I would save him his fruit if I could, But staying behind will do him no good. 'If the matter depended alone upon me, His apples might hang till they dropped from the tree; His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease, 35 40 THE MORNING DREAM. 'TWAS in the glad season of spring, |