Considers all injustice with a frown;

210

But marks the man, that treads his fellow down.
Begone the whip and bell in that hard hand
Are hateful ensigns of usurp'd command.

215

Not Mexico could purchase kings a claim
To scourge him, weariness his only blame
Remember, Heav'n has an avenging rod;
To smite the poor is treason against God.
Trouble is grudgingly, and hardly brook'd,
While life's sublimest joys are overlook'd :
We wander o'er a sun-burnt thirsty soil,
Murm'ring and weary of our daily toil,

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Forget t' enjoy the palm-tree's offer'd shade,

Or taste the fountain in the neighbouring glåde:

Else who would lose that had the pow'r to improve .

The occasion of transmuting fear to love?

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O'tis a godlike privilege to save,

And he that scorns it is himself a slave.

Inform his mind; one flash of heavenly day

Would heal his heart, and melt his chains away.

"Beauty for ashes" is a gift indeed,

230

And slaves, by truth enlarg'd, are 'doubly freed
Then would he say, submissive at thy feet,
While gratitude and love made service sweet,
My dear deliv'rer out of hopeless night,

Whose bounty bought me but to give me light,
I was a bondman on my native plain,

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Sin forg'd, and Ignorance made fast the chain,

Thy lips have shed instruction as the dew,

Taught me what path to shun, and what pursue;
Farewell my former joys! I sigh no more

240

For Africa's once lov'd, benighted shore;

Serving a benefactor I am free;

At my best home, if not exil'd from thee.

Some men make gain a fountain, whence proceeds
A stream of lib'ral and heroick deeds;

245

The swell of pity, not to be confin'd

Within the scanty limits of the mind,

Disdains the bank, and throws the golden sands,

A rich deposit on the bord'ring lands:

These have an ear for his paternal call,

250

Who makes some rich for the supply of all;
God's gift with pleasure in his praise employ ;
And Thornton is familiar with the joy.

O could I worship aught beneath the skies, That earth has seen, or fancy can devise, Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand, Built by no mercenary vulgar hand,

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With fragrant turf, and flow'rs as wild and fair

As ever dress'd a bank, or scented summer air.

Duly as ever on the mountain's height

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The peep of morning shed a dawning light;

Again when Ev'ning in her sober vest

Drew the gray curtain of the fading west,

My soul should yield thee willing thanks and praise,

For the chief blessings of my fairest days:

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But that were sacrilege-praise is not thine,

But his who gave thee, and preserves thee mine
Else I would say, and as I spake bid fly

A captive bird into the boundless sky,

This triple realm adores thee-thou art come
From Sparta hither, and art here at home,

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We feel thy force still active, at this hour

Enjoy immunity from priestly pow'r,

While Conscience, happier than in ancient years,

Owns no superiour but the God she fears.

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Propitious spirit! yet expunge a wrong

Thy rights have suffer'd and our land, too long.
Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts, that share
The fears and hopes of a commercial care.
Prisons expect the wicked, and were built
To bind the lawless, and to punish guilt;
But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood,
Are mighty mischiefs, not to be withstood;
And honest Merit stands on slipp'ry ground
Where covert guile and artifice abound

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285

Let just Restraint, for publick peace design'd,
Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind;
The foe of virtue has no claim to thee,
But let insolvent Innocence go free.

Patron of else the most despis'd of men,

Accept the tribute of a stranger's pen;

290

Verse, like the laurel, its immortal meed,
Should be the guerdon of a noble deed;
I may alarm thee, but I fear the shame,
(Charity chosen as my thenie and aim,)
I must incur, forgetting Howard's name.

295

Bless'd with all wealth can give thee, to resign

Joys doubly sweet to feelings quick as thine,

To quit the bliss thy rural scenes bestow,

To seek a nobler amidst scenes of wo,

300

To traverse seas, range kingdoms, and bring home,

Not the proud monuments of Greece or Rome,

But knowledge such as only dungeons teach,

And only sympathy like thine could reach;
That grief, sequester'd from the publick stage,
Might smooth her feathers, and enjoy her cage;
Speaks a divine ambition, and a zeal,

305

The boldest patriot might be proud to feel.
O that the voice of clamour and debate,

That pleads for peace till it disturbs the state,

310

Were hush'd in favour of thy gen'rous plea,

The poor thy clients, and Heav'n's smile thy fec!
Philosophy, that does not dream or stray,

Walks arm in arm with Nature all his way:

Compasses earth, dives into it, ascends
Whatever step Inquiry recommends,
Sees planetary wonders smoothly roll
Round other systems under her control,
Drinks wisdom at the milky stream of light
That cheers the silent journey of the night,
And brings at his return a bosom charg'd
With rich instruction, and a soul enlarg'd

315

320

The treasur'd sweets of the capacious pian,

That Heav'n spreads wide before the view of man,

All prompt his pleas'd pursuit, and to pursue

325

Still prompt him with a pleasure always new;
He too has a connecting pow'r, and draw
Man to the centre of the common cause.
Aiding a dubious and deficient sight
With a new medium and a purer light.
All truth is precious, if not all divine;

330

And what dilates the pow'rs must needs refine.

He reads the skies, and, watching ev'ry change,
Provides the faculties an ample range;

And wins mankind, as his attempts prevail,

335

A prouder station on the gen'ral scale.

But Reason still, unless divinely taught,

Whate'er she learns, learns nothing as she ought,

The lamp of revelation only shows,

What human wisdom cannot but oppose,

That man,

in nature's richest mantle clad,

And grac'd, with all philosophy can add,

Though fair without, and luminous within,

Is still the progeny and heir of sin.

340

Thus taught, down falls the plumage of his pride, 345

He feels his need of an unerring guide,

And knows that falling he shall rise no more,
Unless the pow'r that bade him stand, restore.
This is indeed philosophy; this known
Makes wisdom, worthy of the name, his own ;
And without this, whatever he discuss,
Whether the space between the stars and us,
Whether he measure earth, compute the sea,
Weigh sunbeams, carve a fly, or split a flea;
The solemn trifler with his boasted skill
Toils much, and is a solemn trifler still:
Blind was he born, and his misguided eyes
Grown dim in trifling studies, blind he dies.
Self-knowledge truly learn'd, of course implies
The rich possession of a nobler prize :

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355

360

For self to self, and God to man reveal'd,
(Two themes to Nature's eye for ever scal'd,)
Are taught by rays, that fly with equal pace
From the same centre of enlight'ning grace.
Here stay thy foot, how copious, and how clear,
Th' o'erflowing well of Charity springs here!
Hark! 'tis the musick of a thousand rills,

365

Some through the groves, some down the sloping hills, Winding a secret or an open course,

And all supplied from an eternal source.
The ties of nature do but feebly bind,
And Commerce partially reclaims mankind;
Philosophy, without his heavenly guide,
May blow up self-conceit, and nourish pride,
But, while his province is the reas'ning part,
Has still a veil of midnight on his heart;
Tis truth divine, exhibited on earth,

370

375

Gives Charity her being and her birth.

Suppose, (when thought is warm and fancy flows,

What will not argument sometimes suppose?)

380

An isle possess'd by creatures of our kind,

Endued with reason, yet by nature blind.

Let supposition lend her aid once more,
And land some grave optician on the shore :

He claps his lens, if haply they may see,

385

Close to the part where vision ought to be ;

But finds, that though his tubes assist the sight,

They cannot give it, or make darkness light.

He reads wise lectures, and describes aloud

A sense they know not, to the wond'ring crowd

390

He talks of light, and the prismatick hues,

As men of depth in erudition use;

But all he gains for his harangue is-Well,-
What monstrous lies some travellers will tell!

The sou!, whose sight all-quick ning grace renews, Takes the resemblance of the good she views,

396

As diamonds stripp'd of their opaque disguise,
Reflect the noonday glory of the skies.