From my Nicon's dear love, from the infantile smile

Of my Aboo, to drag me along;

If then, the wild anguish that pierced through my heart
Was seen in its terrors by thee,
O ease my sad smart,

And thy sanction impart,

That Afric at last may be free!

If while in the slave-ship with many a groan,
I weep o'er my suff'rings in vain ;
While hundreds around me, replied to my moan
With the clanking of many a chain;

If then, thou but deign'st with a pitying eye,
Thy poor shackl'd creature to see,
O thy mercy apply

Afric's sorrows to dry,

And bid the poor Negro be free!

If here as I faint in the vertical sun,

And the scourge goads me on to my toil;
No hope faintly soothing, when labour is done,
Of one joy my lone heart to beguile.

If thou view'st me, Great Spirit! as one thou hast made,
And my fate as dependant on thee;

Oh impart thou thy aid,

That the scourge may be stay'd,

And the black man at last may be free!

The Ocean Queen.

IN Sherwood's ancient forest, a thousand oak trees died,

Ere by the shore, the Ocean Queen, was towering in her pride.

Majestically slow, the ship descended to the main,

And there was in that motion, the right unto her reign.

High up into the clear blue sky, she flung her cloudlike sails,

All brightening in the sunshine, and floating in the gales.

And, as deep down within the sea, her mighty shadow lay,

Did not the peaceful pageant give glory to the day ?

Although the Ocean Queen at rest, be beautiful and bright,

It is through storm and darkness, she walketh in delight;

And when the moon and stars, are swept from out the howling heaven,

In her dread joy along the deep, the Ocean Queen is driven.

But most the noble vessel, exulted in her glee,
Her own victorious thunders, to hear upon the sea;
When all her hundred voices, were blended into one,
And, like a star, her standard, above the battle shone.

The landed foes of freedom quak'd, when she was on the deep,

And fear built up her battlements in vain upon the steep.

In her untarnished triumph she sail'd back from the war,

When Villeneuve and Gravina struck their flags at Trafalgar.

And now she lies at anchor in regal-like repose, While her unconquered crew lament the fall of all her foes;

And as they tread the steadfast decks, bethink them of the blasts

That in the winter midnights went roaring through the masts.

What tho' her standard in the calm hath lost its gorgeous glow,

The guardian form be faded that threatens on her prow;

And storm-stain'd be her canvass that shone so bright

of yore,

It is the gloom of danger the gallant vessel bore.

In battle and in tempest for her we had no fears, But peace her decks hath crowded with coward mutineers,

And they would cut her cables as she at anchor lay, And send the Ocean Queen adrift, and burning through the bay.

But brook'd not her own Admiral, that perjured hands should dare

To touch her storm-proof tackling, or unfurl her sails so fair,

So he bade, 'mid his victorious crew, the signal-gun

to roar,

And a hundred flashing forts returned the thunders from the shore.

Then were the men of England, for sake of England seen In armed barges rowing all around the Ocean Queen; And chain'd were those pale mutineers (as if in sport 'twere done,)

While the ship with all her canvass set kept sailing in the sun.

When back into the moorings the Ocean Queen returned,

While far off in her troubled wake the billows flashed and burned,

Till slowly her sheet-anchor sunk to its rock again, And England's royal standard is flying at her main.

The Ark.

He spoke; but they regarded not,

It seem'd an idle tale,

That o'er the fair and verdant earth,
The waters should prevail.

They heeded not, tho' he proclaimed,
The hour of vengeance nigh;
Alike they scorn God's messenger,
And His own power defy.

Year rolled on year-the pond'rous ark

Was not as yet complete,

And morn and eve, the patriarch's voice,

Was heard in accents sweet.

"Where is your God?" with taunting air They raise the insulting cry;

"What sign that over this bright earth, The watery waste should lie?"

At length 'twas done; and tho' no cloud

Darkened the sky so fair,

Obedient, Noah entered in

And hallowed it with prayer.

The door was closed by unseen hand;
Safely secured within,