With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when the fees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I fleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That finews bought and fold have ever earn'd.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Juft eftimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the flave,
And wear the bonds, than faften them on him.
We have no flaves at home :-Then why abroad ?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and befpeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the bleffing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that where Britain's power
Is felt mankind may feel her mercy too.
Sure there is need of focial intercourse,
Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid,
Between the nations in a world that seems
To toll the deathbell of its own decease,
And by the voice of all its elements
To preach the general doom.*
Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica.
Let flip with such a warrant to destroy?
When did the waves fo haughtily o'erleap
Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry?
Fires from beneath, and meteors* from above,
Portentous, unexampled, unexplain'd,
Have kindled beacons in the fkies; and the old
And crazy earth has had her shaking fits
More frequent, and foregone her usual rest.
Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
And pillars of our planet seem to fail,
And Nature with a dim and fickly eye
To wait the clofe of all? But grant her end
More diftant, and that prophecy demands
A longer refpite, unaccomplish'd yet;
Still they are frowning fignals, and bespeak
Displeasure in His breast who fmites the earth
Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.
And 'tis but feemly, that, where all deserve
And ftand exposed by common peccancy
To what no few have felt, there should be
peace,
And brethren in calamity should love.
Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now
Lie scatter'd where the fhapely column ftood.
Her palaces are duft. In all her streets
The voice of finging and the sprightly chord
Are filent. Revelry, and dance, and fhow
Suffer a fyncope and solemn pause;
While God performs upon the trembling stage
+ Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Afia during the whole fummer of 1783.
Of his own works his dreadful part alone.
How does the earth receive him?-with what figns
Of gratulation and delight her King?
Pours he not all her choiceft fruits abroad,
Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums,
Disclosing Paradife where'er he treads?
She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb,
Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps.
And fiery caverns, roars beneath his foot.
The hills move lightly, and the mountains fioke, For He has touch'd them. From the extremeft point Of elevation down into the abyss
His wrath is bufy, and his frown is felt.
The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rife,
The rivers die into offenfive pools,
And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a gross
And mortal nuifance into all the air.
What folid was, by transformation strange,
Grows fluid; and the fix'd and rooted earth,
Tormented into billows, heaves and fwells,
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl
Sucks down its prey infatiable. Immense
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs
And agonies of human and of brute
Multitudes, fugitive on every side,
And fugitive in vain. The fylvan scene
Migrates uplifted; and, with all its foil
Alighting in far diftant fields, finds out
A new poffeffor, and furvives the change.
Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought
To an enormous and o'erbearing height,
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore Refistless. Never fuch a sudden flood,
Upridged fo high, and sent on such a charge,
Poffeff'd an inland fcene. Where now the throng
That preff'd the beach, and, hafty to depart,
Look'd to the fea for fafety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep-
A prince with half his people! Ancient towers,
And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes
Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume
Life in the unproductive fhades of death,
Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth,
And, happy in their unforeseen release
From all the rigours of reftraint, enjoy
The terrors of the day that sets them free.
Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast,
Freedom! whom they that lose thee so regret,
That e'en a judgement, making way for thee,
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy fake.
Such evil Sin hath wrought; and such a flame
Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth,
And, in the furious inqueft that it makes
On God's behalf, lays waste his fairest works.
The very elements, though each be meant
The minister of man, to serve his wants,
Confpire against him. With his breath he draws
A plague into his blood; and cannot use
Life's neceffary means, but he must die.
Storms rife to o'erwhelm him: or if ftormy winds
Rife not, the waters of the deep shall rise,
And, needing none affiftance of the ftorm,
Shall roll themselves afhore, and reach him there.
The earth fhall shake him out of all his holds,
Or make his house his grave: nor so content,
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs.
What then!-were they the wicked above all,
And we the righteous, whose fast-anchor'd isle
Moved not, while theirs was rock'd, like a light skiff,
The sport of every wave? No: none are clear,
And none than we more guilty.
But, where all
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark:
May punish, if he please, the less, to warn
The more malignant. If he fpared not them,
Tremble and be amazed at thine escape,
Far guiltier England, left he spare not thee!
Happy the man who fees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Refolving all events, with their effects
And manifold refults, into the will
And arbitration wife of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The leaft of our concerns (fince from the leaft
The greatest oft originate); could chance
Find place in his dominion, or difpofe
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
This truth Philofophy, though eagle-eyed
In Nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And, having found his inftrument, forgets,
Or difregards, or, more prefumptuous ftill,
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