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Deprived of her and freedom at a blow,
What has he left that he can yet forego?
Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resigned,
He feels his body's bondage in his mind;
Puts off his generous nature; and, to suit
His manners with his fate, puts on the brute.
O most degrading of all ills, that wait
On man, a mourner in his best estate!
All other sorrows Virtue may endure,
And find submission more than half a cure;
Grief is itself a medicine, and bestowed
T'improve the fortitude that bears the load,
To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase,
The path of Wisdom, all whose paths are peace;
But slavery!-Virtue dreads it as her grave:
Patience itself is meanness in a slave:
Or if the will and sovereignty of God
Did suffer it a while, and kiss the rod,
Wait for the dawning of a brighter day,
And snap the chain the moment when you may.
Nature imprints upon whate'er we see,
That has a heart and life in it, Be free;

The beasts are chartered-neither age nor force
Can quell the love of freedom in a horse:
He breaks the cord that held him at the rack;
And, conscious of an unencumbered back,
Snuffs up the morning air, forgets the rein;
Loose fly his forelock and his ample mane.
Responsive to the distant neigh he neighs;
Nor stops till, overleaping all delays,
He finds the pasture where his fellows graze.
Canst thou, and honoured with a Christian

name,

Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame;
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?
So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold,
To quit the forest and invade the fold:
So may the ruffian, who, with ghostly glide,
Dagger in hand, steals close to your bed side;
Not he, but his emergence forced the door,
He found it inconvenient to be poor.
Has God then given its sweetness to the cane,
Unless his laws be trampled on-in vain?
Built a brave world, which can not yet subsist,
Unless his right to rule it be dismissed?
Impudent blasphemy! So Folly pleads,
And, Avarice being judge, with ease succeeds.
But grant the plea, and let it stand for just,
That mar, make man his prey, because he must;
Still there is room for pity to abate,
And sooth the sorrows of so sad a state.

A Briton knows, or if he knows it not,

| The wretch, that works and weeps without relief,
Has one that notices his silent grief.

He, from whose hands alone all power proceeds,
Ranks its abuse among the foulest deeds,
Considers all injustice with a frown;

But marks the man that treads his fellow down.
Begone-the whip and bell in that hard hand
Are hateful ensigns of usurped command.
Not Mexico could purchase kings a claim
To scourge him, weariness his only blame.
Remember Heaven has an avenging rod:
To smite the poor is treason against God.

Trouble is grudgingly and hardly brooked,
While life's sublimest joys are overlooked
We wander o'er a sunburnt thirsty soil,
Murmuring and weary of our daily toil,
Forget t' enjoy the palm-tree's offered shade,
Or taste the fountain in the neighbouring glade:
Else who would lose, that had the power t' im

1

prove,
The occasion of transmuting fear to love?
O 'tis a god-like privilege to save,

And 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,

46

And slaves, by truth enlarged, are doubly freed.
Then would he say, submissive at thy feet,
While gratitude and love made service sweet,-
My dear deliverer out of hopeless night,
Whose bounty bought me but to give me light,
I was a bondman on my native plain,
Sin forged, 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
For Africa's once loved, benighted shore;
Serving a benefactor I am free;

At my best home, if not exiled from thee.
Some men make gain a fountain, whence pro-
ceeds

A stream of liberal and heroic deeds;
The swell of pity, not to be confined
Within the scanty limits of the mind,
Disdains the bank, and throws the golden sands,
A rich deposite, on the bordering lands:
These have an ear for his paternal call,
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,

The Scripture placed within his reach, he ought, Built by no mercenary vulgar hand,

That souls have no discriminating hue,
Alike important in their Maker's view;
That none are free from blemish since the fall,
And Love divine has paid one price for all.

With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair
As ever dressed a bank, or scented summer air.
Duly, as ever on the mountain's height
The peep of Morning shed a dawning light,

Again, when Evening, in her sober vest,
Drew the gray curtain of the fading west,

| Drinks wisdom at the milky stream of light, That cheers the silent journey of the night,

My soul should yield thee willing thanks and And brings at his return a bosom charged

praise,

For the chief blessings of my fairest days:
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.
We feel thy force still active, at this hour
Enjoy immunity from priestly power,

With rich instruction, and a soul enlarged.
The treasured sweets of the capacious plan,
That Heaven spreads wide before the view of man,
All prompt his pleased pursuit, and to pursue
Still prompt him, with a pleasure always new;
He too has a connecting power, and draws
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;

While Conscience, happier than in ancient years, And what dilates the powers must needs refine.
Owns no superior but the God she fears.
Propitious spirit! yet expunge a wrong

Thy rights have suffered, 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 slippery ground,
Where covert guile and artifice abound.
Let just restraint, for public peace designed,
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 despised of men,
Accept the tribute of a stranger's pen;
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 theme and aim)
I must incur, forgetting Howard's name.
Blest 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,
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 sequestered from the public stage,
Might smooth her feathers, and enjoy her cage;
Speaks a divine ambition, and a zeal,
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,
Were hushed in favour of thy generous plea,
The poor thy clients, and Heaven's smile thy fee?
Philosophy, that does not dream or stray,
Walks arm in arm with nature all his way;
Compasses earth, dives into it, ascends
Whatever steep Inquiry recommends,
Sees planetary wonders smoothly roll
Round other systems under her control,

He reads the skies, and, watching every change,
Provides the faculties an ampler range;
And wins mankind, as his attempts prevail,
A prouder station on the general 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 can not but oppose,
That man, in nature's richest mantle clad
And graced with all philosophy can add,
Though fair without and luminous within,
Is still the progeny and heir of sin.

Thus taught, down falls the plumage of his pride;
He feels his need of an unerring guide,
And knows that falling he shall rise no more,
Unless the power 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 spit 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 learned of course implies
The rich possession of a nobler prize;
For self to self, and God to man revealed,
(Two themes to Nature's eye for ever sealed)
Are taught by rays, that fly with equal pace
From the same centre of enlightening grace.
Here stay thy foot; how copious, and how clear,
Th' o'erflowing well of Charity springs here!
Hark! 'tis the music of a thousand rills,

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 promise is the reasoning part,
Has still a veil of midnight on his heart

Tis Truth divine, exhibited on earth, Gives Charity her being and her birth.

Suppose (when thought is warm and fancy flows, What will not argument sometimes suppose? An isle possessed 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, Close to the part where vision ought to be; But finds, that, though his tubes assist the sight, They can not give it, or make darkness light. He reads wise lectures, and describes aloud A sense they know not, to the wondering crowd; He talks of light, and the prismatic 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 soul, whose sight all-quickening grace re

news,

Takes the resemblance of the good she views,
As diamonds, stripped of their opaque disguise,
Reflect the noonday glory of the skies.
She speaks of him, her author, guardian, friend,
Whose love knew no beginning, knows no end,
In language warm as all that love inspires,
And in the glow of her intense desires,
Pants to communicate her noble fires.
She sees a world stark blind to what employs
Her eager thought, and feeds her flowing joys;
Though Wisdom hail them, heedless of her call,
Flies to save some, and feels a pang for all:
Herself as weak as her support is strong,
She feels that frailty she denied so long;
And, from a knowledge of her own disease,
Learns to compassionate the sick she sees.
Here see, acquitted of all vain pretence,
The reign of genuine Charity commence.
Though scorn repay her sympathetic tears,
She still is kind, and still she perseveres;
The truth she loves a sightless world blaspheme,
'Tis childish dotage, a delirious dream;
The danger they discern not, they deny;
Laugh at their only remedy, and die.
But still a soul thus touched can never ceasc,
Whoever threatens war, to speak of peace.
Pure in her aim, and in her temper mild,
Her wisdom seems the weakness of a child:
She makes excuses where she might condemn,
Reviled by those that hate her, prays for them:
Suspicion lurks not in her artless breast,
The worst suggested, she believes the best;
Not soon provoked, however stung and teased,
And, if perhaps made angry, soon appeased;
She rather waives than will dispute her right,
And, injured, makes forgiveness her delight.
Such was the portrait an apostle drew,
The bright original was one he knew;

When one, that holds communion with the skies, Has filled his urn where these pure waters riso, And once more mingles with us meaner thing 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings; Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, That tells us whence his treasures are supplied. So when a ship, well freighted with the stores The sun matures on India's spicy shores, Has dropped her anchor, and her canvass furled, In some safe haven of our western world, 'Twere vain inquiry to what port she went The gale informs us, laden with the scent.

Some seek, when queasy conscience has its qualms,

To lull the painful malady with alms;
But charity not feigned intends alone
Another's good-theirs centres in their own;
And, too short lived to reach the realms of peace,
Must cease for ever when the poor shall cease.
Flavia, most tender of her own good name,
Is rather careless of her sister's fame:
Her superfluity the poor supplies,
But, if she touch a character, it dies.
The seeming virtue weighed against the vice,
She deems all safe, for she has paid the price:
No charity but alms aught values she,
Except in porcelain on her mantel-tree.
How many deeds, with which the world has rung
From Pride, in league with Ignorance, have sprung
But God o'errules all human follies still,
And bends the tough materials to his will.
A conflagration, or a wintry flood,
Has left some hundreds without home or food;
Extravagance and Avarice shall subscribe,
While fame and self-complacence are the bribe.
The brief proclaimed, it visits every pew,
But first the squire's, a compliment but due:
With slow deliberation he unties

His glittering purse, that envy of all eyes,
And, while the clerk just puzzles out the psalm,
Slides guinea behind guinea in his palm;
Till finding, what he might have found before,
A smaller piece amidst the precious store,
Pinched close between his finger and his thumb,
He half exhibits, and then drops the sum.
Gold to be sure!-Throughout the town 'tis told,
How the good squire gives never less than gold,
From motives such as his, though not the best,
Springs in due time supply for the distressed;
Not less effectual than what love bestows,
Except that office clips it as it goes.

But lest I seem to sin against a friend,
And wound the grace I mean to recommend,
(Though vice derided with a just design
Implies no trespass against love divine,)
Once more I would adopt the graver style,
A teacher should be sparing of his smile.
Unless a love of virtue light the flame,

Heaven held his hand, the likeness must be true. Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame;

He hides behind a magisterial air
His own offences, and strips others bare;
Affects, indeed, a most humane concern,
That men, if gently tutored, will not learn;
That mulish Folly, not to be reclaimed
By softer methods, must be made ashamed;
But (I might instance in St. Patrick's dean)
Too often rails to gratify his spleen.
Most satirists are indeed a public scourge;
Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge;
Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirred,
The milk of their good purpose all to curd.
Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse,
By lean despair upon an empty purse,
The wild assassins start into the street,
Prepared to poniard whomsoe'er they meet.
No skill in swordmanship, however just,
Can be secure against a madman's thrust;
And even Virtue, so unfairly matched,
Although immortal, may be pricked or scratched.
When scandal has new minted an old lie,
Or taxed invention for a fresh supply,
'Tis called a satire, and the world appears
Gathering around it with erected ears:

A thousand names are tossed into the crowd;
Some whispered softly, and some twanged aloud;
Just as the sapience of an author's brain
Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain.
Strange! how the frequent interjected dash
Quickens a market and helps off the trash;
The important letters, that include the rest,
Serve as a key to those that are suppressed;
Conjecture gripes the victims in his paw,
The world is charmed, and Scrib escapes the law.
So, when the cold damp shades of night prevail,
Worms may be caught by either head or tail;
Forcibly drawn from many a close recess,
They meet with little pity, no redress;
Plunged in the stream, they lodge upon the mud,
Food for the famished rovers of the flood.

All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence: A bold remark, but which, if well applied, Would humble many a towering poet's pride. Perhaps the man was in a sportive fit, And had no other play-place for his wit; Perhaps enchanted with the love of fame, He sought the jewel in his neighbour's shame; Perhaps whatever end he might pursue, The cause of virtue could not be his view. At every stroke wit flashes in our eyes; The turns are quick, the polished points surprise, But shine with cruel and tremendous charms, That, while they please, possess us with alarms; So have I scen (and hastened to the sight On all the wings of holiday delight,) Where stands that monument of ancient power, Named, with emphatic dignity, the Tower,

Guns, halberts, swords, and pistols, great and

small,

In starry forms disposed upon the wall;
We wonder, as we gazing stand below,
That brass and steel should make so fine a show;
But though we praise th' exact designer's skill,
Account them implements of mischief still.

No works shall find acceptance in that day,
When all disguises shall be rent away,
That square not truly with the Scripture plan,
Nor spring from love to God, or love to man.
As he ordains things sordid in their birth
To be resolved into their parent earth;
And, though the soul shall seek superior orbs,
Whate'er this world produces, it absorbs;
So self starts nothing, but what tends apace
Home to the goal, where it began the race.
Such as our motive is, our aim must be;
If this be servile, that can ne'er be free:
If self employ us, whatsoe'er is wrought,
We glorify that self, not him we ought:
Such virtues had need prove their own reward,
The Judge of all men owes them no regard.
True Charity, a plant divinely nursed,
Fed by the love from which it rose at first,
Thrives against hope, and, in the rudest scene,
Storms but enliven its unfading green:
Exuberant is the shadow it supplies,

Its fruits on earth, its growth above the skies.
To look at Him, who formed us and redeemed,
So glorious now, though once so disesteemed,
To see a God stretch forth his human hand,
T' uphold the boundless scenes of his command.
To recollect, that, in a form like ours,

He bruised beneath his feet th' infernal powers.
Captivity led captive, rose to claim

The wreath he won so dearly in our name;
That, throned above all height, he condescends
To call the few that trust in him his friends;
That, in the Heaven of heavens, that space he
deems

Too scanty for th' exertion of his beams,

And shines as if impatient to bestow
Life and a kingdom upon worms below;
That sight imparts a never-dying flame,
Though feeble in degree, in kind the same.
Like him the soul, thus kindled froin above,
Spreads wide her arms of universal love;
And, still enlarged as she receives the giace,
Includes creation in her close embrace.
Behold a Christian! and without the fires
The founder of that name alone inspires,
Though all accomplishment, all knowledge meet,
To make the shining prodigy complete,

Whoever boasts that name-behold a cheat!
Were love, in these the world's last doting years,
As frequent as the want of it appears,
The churches warmed, they would no longer hold
Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold;

Relenting forms would lose their power or cease; And e'en the dipped and sprinkled live in peace:

Both sides deceived, if rightly understood,
Pelting each other for the public good.
Did Charity prevail, the press would prove
A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love;

And I might spare myself the pains to show
deep,What few can learn, and all suppose they know.
Thus I have sought to grace a serious lay
With many a wild, indeed, but flowery spray,
In hopes to gain, what else I must have lost,
Th' attention pleasure has so much engrossed.
But if, unhappily deceived, I dream,

Each heart would quit its prison in the breast,
And flow in free communion with the rest.
The statesman, skilled in projects dark and
Might burn his useless Machiavel, and sleep;
His budget often filled; yet always poor,
Might swing at ease behind his study door,
No longer prey upon our annual rents,
Or scare the nation with its big contents:
Disbanded legions freely might depart,
And slaying man would cease to be an art.
No learned disputants would take the field,
Sure not to conquer, and sure not to yield;

And prove too weak for so divine a theme, Let Charity forgive me a mistake,

That zeal, not vanity, has chanced to make, And spare the poet for his subject's sake.

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THOUGH Nature weigh our talents, and dispense The heathen law-givers of ancient days,

To every man his modicum of sense,
And conversation in its better part

May be esteemed a gift, and not an art,
Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil,
On culture, and the sowing of the soil.
Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse;
Not more distinct from harmony divine,
The constant creaking of a country sign.
As alphabets in ivory employ,

Hour after hour, the yet unlettered boy,
Sorting and puzzling with a deal of glee
Those seeds of science called his A B C;
So language in the mouths of the adult,
Witness its insignificant result,
Too often proves an implement of play,
A toy to sport with, and pass time away.
Collect at evening what the day brought forth,
Compress the sum into its solid worth,
And if it weigh th' importance of a fly,
The scales are false, or algebra a lie,
Sacred interpreter of human thought,
How few respect or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of every wrong,
Who dare dishonour or defile the tongue;
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice,
Or sell the glory at the market-price;
Who vote for hire, or point it with lampoon,
The dear-bought placeman, and the cheap buffoon.
There is a prurience in the speech of some,
Whath stays him, or else God would strike them
dumb:

His wise forbearance has their end in view,
They fill their measure, and receive their due.

Names almost worthy of a Christian's praise, Would drive them forth from the resort of men, And shut up every satyr in his den.

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O come not ye near innocence and truth,
Ye worms that eat into the bud of youth!
Infectious as impure, your blighting power
Taints in its rudiments the promised flower,
Its odour perished and its charming hue,
Thenceforth 'tis hateful, for it smells of you.
Not e'en the vigorous and headlong rage
Of adolescence, or a firmer age,
Affords a plea allowable or just
For making speech the pamperer of lust;
But when the breath of age commits the fault,
'Tis nauseous as the vapour of a vault.
So withered stumps disgrace the sylvan scene,
No longer fruitful, and no longer green;
The sapless wood, divested of the bark,
Grows fungous, and takes fire at every spark.

Oaths terminate, as Paul observes, all strifeSome men have surely then a peaceful life; Whatever subject occupy discourse, The feats of Vestris, or the naval force, Asseveration blustering in your face Makes contradiction such a hopeless case: In every tale they tell, or false or true, Well known, or such as no man ever knew, They fix attention, heedless of your pain, With oaths like rivets forced into the brain; And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout, They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt, A Persian, humble servant of the sun, Who, though devout, yet bigotry had none

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