The kindest and the happiest pair The love that cheers life's latest stage, Proof against sickness and old age, Preserved by virtue from declension, Becomes not weary of attention; But lives, when that exterior grace, Which first inspired the flame, decays. 'Tis gentle, delicate, and kind, To faults compassionate or blind, And will with sympathy endure Those evils it would gladly cure: But angry, coarse, and harsh expression, Shows love to be a mere profession; Proves that the heart is none of his, Or soon expels him if it is. THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. FORCED from home and all its pleasures, Afric's coast I left forlorn; To increase a stranger's treasures, Still in thought as free as ever, What are England's rights, I ask, Can not forfeit Nature's claim; 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. For the sweets your cane affords. Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, Ask him, if your knotted scourges, Matches, blood-extorting screws, Hark! he answers-wild tornadoes, By our blood in Afric wasted, Ere our necks received the chain; By the miseries that we tasted, Crossing in your barks the main; By our suffering since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart; All, sustained 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! PITY FOR POOR AFRICANS 'Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor.?— I own I am shocked at the purchase of slaves, And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves; What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans, Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea? If foreigners likewise would give up the trade, Much more in behalf of your wish might be said; But, while they get riches by purchasing blacks, Pray tell me why we may not also go snacks? Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind A story so pat, you may think it is coined, go; Besides, the man's poor, his orchard's his bread, 'You speak very fine, and you look very grave, They spoke, and Tom pondered-' I see they will go: Poor man! what a pity to injure him so! Poor man! I would save him his fruit if I could, But staying behind would do him no good. 'If the matter depended alone upon me, His apples might hang, till they dropped from the Some clouds which had over us hung, Fled, chased by her melody clear, And methought while she liberty sung, 'Twas liberty only to hear. Thus swiftly dividing the flood, To a slave-cultured island we came, Where a demon, her enemy, stood— Oppression his terrible name. In his hand, as the sign of his sway, A scourge hung with lashes he bore, And stood looking out for his prey From Africa's sorrowful shore. But soon as approaching the land That goddess-like woman he viewed, The scourge he let fall from his hand, With the blood of his subjects imbrued. I saw him both sicken and die, And the moment the monster expired, Heard shouts that ascended the sky, From thousands with rapture inspired. Awaking how could I but muse At what such a dream should betide? But soon my ear caught the glad news, Which served my weak thought for a guideThat Britannia, renowned o'er the waves For the hatred she ever has shown, To the black-sceptered rulers of slaves, Resolves to have none of her own. THE THE MORNING DREAM. "Twas in the glad season of spring, Asleep at the dawn of the day, I dreamed what I can not but sing, Far hence to the westward I sailed, In the steerage a woman I saw, Such at least was the form that she wore, Whose beauty impressed me with awe, Ne'er taught me by woman before. She sat, and a shield at her side Shed light, like a sun on the waves And, smiling divinely, she cried 'I go to make freemen of slaves.' Then raising her voice to a strain The sweetest that ear ever heard, She sung of the slave's broken chain, Wherever her glory appeared. M NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. The songster heard this short oration, That brother should not war with brother, Those Christians best deserve the name, ON A GOLDFINCHI, STARVED TO DEATH IN HIS CAGE. TIME was when I was free as air, But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain, And of a transient date; For caught, and caged, and starved to death, In dying sighs my little breath Soon passed the wiry grate. Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes, And cure of every ill; THE PINE-APPLE AND BEE. THE pine-apples, in triple row, To joys forbidden man aspires, The silly unsuccessful bee. The maid, who views with pensive air Our dear delights are often such, HORACE. BOOK II. ODE X. RECEIVE, dear friend, the truths I teach, So shalt thou live beyond the reach Of adverse Fortune's power; Not always tempt the distant deep, Nor always timorously creep Along the treacherous shore. . He that holds fast the golden mean, The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, The tallest pines feel most the power Comes heaviest to the ground; The bolts, that spare the mountain's side, His cloud-capt eminence divide, And spread the ruin round. The well-informed philosopher And hopes, in spite of pain; Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth What if thine heaven be overcast, The God that strings the silver bow, THE LILY AND THE ROSE. Within the garden's peaceful scene The Rose soon reddened into rage, The Lily's height bespoke command, She seemed designed for Flora's hand, This civil bickering and debate The goddess chanced to hear, And flew to save, ere yet too late, The pride of the parterre. Yours is, she said, the nobler hue, Let each be deemed a queen. Thus, soothed and reconciled, each seeks The fairest British fair: The seat of empire is her cheeks, IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. HEU inimicitias quoties parit æmula forma, Quam raro pulchræ pulchra placere potest | Sed fines ultra solitos discordia tendit, Hortus ubi dulces præbet tacitosque recessus, Ira Rosam et meritis quæsita superbia tangunt, Altior emicat illa, et celso vertice nutat, Ceu flores inter non habitura parem, Fastiditque alios, et nata videtur in usus Imperii, sceptrum, Flora quod ipsa gerat. Nec Dea non sensit civilis murmura rixæ, Et tibi forma datur procerior omnibus, inquit; His ubi sedatus furor est, petit utraque nympham, Qualem inter Veneres Anglia sola parit; Hancpenes imperium est, nihil optant amplius, hujus Regnant in nitidis, et sine lite, genis. THE POPLAR FIELD. THE poplars are felled, farewell to the shade, Twelve years have elapsed, since I last took a view Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew; And now in the grass behold they are laid, And the tree is my seat, that once lent me a shade. The blackbird has fled to another retreat, Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat, And the scene where his melody charmed me be fore, Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more, My fugitive years are all hasting away, "Tis a sight to engage me, if any thing can, IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. Hei mihi! bis senos dum luctu torqueor annos, Ah ubi nunc merula cantus? Felicior illum Sed qui succisas doleo succidar et ipse, Tam subito periisse videns tam digna manere, VOTUM. O MATUTINI rores auræque salubres, Quàm vellem ignotus, quod mens mea semper avebat, Ante larem proprium placidam expectare senectam, Tum demùm, exactis non infeliciter annis, TRANSLATION OF PRIOR'S CHLOE AND EUPHELIA. MERCATOR, vigiles oculos ut fallere possit, Nomine sub ficto trans mare mittit opes; Mr. Cowper afterwards altered this last stanza in the following manner: The change both my heart and my fancy employs, I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys; Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures we see, Lené sonat liquidumque meis Euphelia chordis, Ad speculum ornabat nitidos Euphelia crines, Fila lyra vocemque paro suspiria surgunt, Et miscent numeris murmura mosta meis, Dumque tuæ memora laudes, Euphelia forma, Tota anima interia pendet ab ore Chloes. Subrubet illa pudore, et contrahit altera frontem, THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. Showing how he went farther than he intended, and cane safe home again. JOHN GILPIN was a citizen Of credit and renown, A train-band captain eke was he John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, Though wedded we have been These twice ten tedious years, yet we No holiday have seen. To-morrow is our wedding day, And we will then repair Unto the Bell at Edmonton All in a chaise and pair. My sister, and my sister's child, Myself, and children three, Will fill the chaise; so you must ride On horsebark after we. He soon replied, I do admire I am a linen-draper bold, As all the world doth know, And my good friend the calender Will lend his horse to go. Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, That's well said; |