The bowl brief pleasure can bestow, But, King of Persia, thou art blest, Hath made the happy in Apame's love! Lord of the earth! we will not raise For thee no victim need expire; The burning City flames for thee, Thy sacred Majesty to bless To thee he sacrifices Happiness And Peace, and Love's endearing ties; To thee a Slave he lives, for thee a Slave he dies. Oh! I have seen him fondly trace Gaze, and sigh. sees, and smiles applause ! Hush'd was the lute, the Hebrew ceased to siog; The shoul rushd forth, For ever live the King! Loud was the uproar, as when Rome's decree Pronounced Achaia once again was free; Assembled Greece enrapt with food belief Heard the false boon, and bless'd the treacherous Chicf. Each breast with freedom's holy ardour glows, From every voice the cry of rapture rose; Their thundering clamours rend the astonished sky, And birds o'erpassing hear, and drop, and die. Thus o'er the Persian dome their plaudits ring, And the high hall re-echoed-Live the King! The Mutes bow'd reverent down before their Lord, The assembled Satraps envied and adored; Joy sparkled in the Monarch's conscious eyes, And his pleased pride already doom'd the prize. He ceased, and silent still remain'd the throng, every voice the thundering plaudits flow; Darius smiled, Apame's sparkling eyes Glanced on the King, and Woman won the prize. Silent they saw Zorobabel advance : he paused a moment mute, Then with light finger touch'd the softer lute. Apame knew the Hebrew's grateful cause, And bent hier head, and sweelly smiled applause. Why is the warrior's cheek so red? Now silent sate the expectant crowd: Alone Ancient of days! Eternal Truth! one hymn, One holier strain the Bard shall raise to thee, Thee Powerful! Thee Benevolent! Thee Just! Friend! Father! All in All!--The Vine's rich blood, The Monarch's might, and Woman's conquering charms, These shall we praise alone?-Oye who sit Beneath your vine, and quaff at evening hour The healthful bowl, remember Him whose dews, Whose rains, whose sun, matured the growing fruit, Creator and Preserver! --Reverence Dim. Avd death, for He hath delegated power, gaze To shun abhorrent all the mental eye All-Just! All-Mighty! I should ill deserve If, so content with ear-deep melodies, Unchanging Jusiice, universal Love. Such strains the blessed Spirits of the Good Why does the Youth delight to rove Amid the dark and lonely grove ? Why in the throng where all are gay, With absent eyes from gaiety distraught, Sits be alone in silent thought? Silent he sits, for far away His passion'd soul delights to stray; Recluse he roves as if he fain would shun All human-kind, because he loves but One! Yes, King of Persia, thou art blest! But not because the sparkling bowl To rapture elevates thy waken'd soul; But not because of Power possest; Nor that the Nations dread thy nod, Even on a Monarch's solitude The dying notes still murmur'd on the string, When from his throne arose the raptured king. About to speak he stood, and waved his hand, And all-expectant sate the obedient band. Then just and generous, thus the Monarch cries, « Be thine, Zorobabel, the well-earn'd prize. For the pale fiend cold-hearted Commerce there Hath spread his toils accursed wide and far, And calls, to share the prey, his kindred Demon War. The purple robe of state thy form shall fold, SONNET II. « Fallen is Jerusalem !» the Hebrew cries, Way dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair, And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries? Before the gale che laden vessel flies; The Heavens all-favouring smile, the breeze is fair; Hark to the clamours of the exulting crew! As the white sail is lessening from thy view? But may the God of justice bid the wind Whelm that curst bark beneath the niountain wave, And bless with Liberty and Death the Slave! SONNET III. So spake Zorobabel.–Thus Woman's praise 1793. POEMS CONCERNING THE SLAVE TRADE.' Ou, he is worn with toil! the big drops run Down his dark cheek; hold-hold thy merciless hand, Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command As pitiless as proud Prosperity, While that inhuman trader lifts on high Haply ye scorn: I thank thee, Gracious God, That I do feel upon my cheek the glow 1 SONNET I. mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood ? For ever must your Niger's tainted flood Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain? Hold your mad bands! what demon prompts to rear The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore With laurels water'd by the widow's tear Wreathing his helmet crown l-Lift high the spear! And like the desolating whirlwind's sweep, Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep; 1 When first tbe Abolition of the SLAYE-TRADE was agitated in England, the friends of humanity endeavoured by two means to accomplish it-to destroy the Trade immediately by the interference of Government; or by the disuse of West-Indian productions : a slow but certain method. For a while Government held the language of Justice, and individuals with enthusiasm banished sufar from their tables. This epihusiasm soon cooled; the majority of those who had made this sacrifice (1 prostitute the word, but such they thought it), persuaded themselves that parliament would do all, and that individual efforts were no longer Decessary. Thus ended the one attempt; it is not difficult to say why the other has failed, -it is not difficult, when the minister has once found himself in the minority, and on the side of Justice.Would to God that the interests of those who dispose of us as they please, had been as closely connected with the preservation of Peace and Liberty, as with the continuance of this traffic in human Besh! There are yet two other methods remaining, by which this traffic will probably be abolished-by the introduction of East-Indian or maple sugar, or by ibu just and general rebellion of the Negroes, To these past and present prospects the following Poems occasionally allude: to the English custom of exciting wars upon the slave-coast that they may purchase prisoners, and to the punishment sometimes inficted upon a Negro for Murder, of which llector St John was an eye-witness. SONNET IV. As undisturb'd as Justice! but no more Jo bitterness; thinking that far away Though the gay Negroes join the midnight song, Though merriment resounds on Niger's shore, She whom he loves far from the cheerful throng Stands sad, and gazes from her lowly door With dim-grown cye, silent and woe-begone, And weeps for him who will return no more. SONNET V. Did then the Negro rear at last the Sword Of Vengeance? drench'd he deep its thirsty blade In the hard heart of his tyrannic Jord? Of every past delighit; his native grove, All lost for ever! Then Remembrance wrought His soul to madness: round his restless bed Freedom's pale spectre stalk'd, with a stero smile Pointing the wounds of Slavery, the while She shook her chains and hung her sullen head: No more on Heaven he calls with fruitless breath, But sweetens with revenge the draught of death. By the scourges blackend o'er SONNET VI. High in the air exposed the Slave is hung, To all the birds of Heaven, their living food! Ve groans not, though awaked by that fierce Sun New tortures live to drink their parent blood! He groans not, though the gorging Vulture tear The quivering fibre! Hither gaze, Oye Who tore this Man from Peace and Liberty! Gaze hither, ye who weigh with scrupulous care The right and prudent; for beyond the grave There is another world !- And call to mind, Erc your decrecs proclaim to all mankind Murder is legalized, that there the Slave, Before the Eternal, « thunder-tongued shall plead Against the deep damnation of your deed.» 1794. And thou hast heard! and o'er their blood-fed plains And o'er the unholy host with bapeful breath, 1795. THE SAILOR, WHO HAD SERVED IN THE SLAVE TRADE. In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of BRISTOL discovered a Sailor in the neighbourhood of that City, groaning and praying is a cow-house. The circumstance which occasioned his agons of mind is detailed in the annexed Ballad, without the slightest addition or alteration. By presenting it as a Poem the story is made more public, and such stories ought to be made as public as possible. TO THE GENIUS OF AFRICA. It was a Christian minister, Who, in the month of flowers, Walk'd forth at eve amid the fields Near Bristol's ancient towers. Otrou, who from ihe mountain's height Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight Of waters to old Nile's majestic tide; Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain The Mistress of the Main; Stera o'er the desert solitude, Nor, Genius, should the midnight song The palmy plains among, When from a lonely out-house breathed, He heard a voice of woe, And groans which less might seem from pain, Than wretchedness to flow Heart-rending groans they were, with words Of bitterest despair, Pronounced in broken prayer. The Christian minister went in, A sailor there he sees, Whose hands were lifted up to Heaven, And he was on his knees. Ah, liu not to hear the song! Pours all the horrors of his train, Howls the hyena o'er the slain! Lo! where the flaming village fires the skies! Avenging Power, awake! arise! Nor did the Sailor so intent His entering footsteps heed, But now «Our Father» said, and now His half-forgotten creed; Arise, thy children's wrongs redress! Ah, heed the mother's wretchedness! When in the hot infectious air O'er her sick babe she bows opprest, – Ah, hear her when the Traders tear The drooping insant from her breast! Whelmd in the waters he shall rest! Hear thou the wretched mother's cries, Avenging Power! awake! arise! And often on his Saviour calld With many a bitter groan, But in such anguish as may spring From deepest guilt alone. The miscrable man was ask'd Why he was kneeling there, The anguish of his prayer. * Alloding to the fatalities attending the British armament to and in the West Indies. By the rank infected air The captain made me tie her up, And flog while he stood by, And then he cursed me if I staid My hand to hear her cry. seen Toward the sound contending, when they hear The frequent carcass from her guilty deck Dash in the opening deep, no longer now The guilt shall rest on England; but if yet There be among her children, hard of heart GRENVILLE, few years have had their course, since last And seard of conscience, men who set at nought Exulting Oxford view'd a spectacle Her laws and God's own word, upon themselves Like this day's pomp; and yet to those wlio throng d Their sin be visited !-the Red-cross flag, These walls, which echoed then with Portland's praise, Redeem'd from stain so foul, no longer now What change hath intervened! The bloom of spring Covereth the abomination. Is fled from many a cheek, where roseate joy This thy praise, And beauty bloom'd; the inexorable grave O Grenville, and while ages roll away Hath claim'd its portion; and the band of youths, This shall be thy remembrance! Yea, when all Who then, collected here as in the port For which the tyrant of these abject times From whence to launch on life's adventurous sea, Hath given luis honourable name on earth, Stood on the beach, ere this have found their lots His nights of innocent sleep, his hopes of heaven : Of good or evil. Thus the lapse of years, When all his triumplıs and his deeds of blood, Evolving all thidgs in its quiet course, The fretful changes of his feverish pride, Hath wrought for them: and though those years have His midnight murders and perfidious plots, Are but a tale of years so long gone by, Fearful vicissitudes, of wilder change That they who read distrust the hideous truth, Than history yet had learnt, or old romance Willing to let a charitable doubt In wildest mood imagined, yet these, too, Abate their liorror: Grenville, even then Portentous as they seem, not less lave risen, Thy memory will be freslı among mankind ! Each of its natural cause the sure effect, Afric with all her tongues will speak of thee, All righteously ordain'd. Lo! kingdoms wreck'd, With Wilberforce and Clarkson, he whom Heaven, Thrones overturn'd, built up, then swept away To be the apostle of this holy work Like fabrics in the summer clouds, dispersed Raised up and strengthen'd, and upheld through all By the same breath that heap'd them; rightful kings, llis arduous toil. To end the glorious task, Who, from a line of long-drawn ancestry That blessed, that redeeming deed was thine: Held the transmitted sceptre, to the axe Be it thy pride in life, thy thought in death, Bowing the anointed head; or draggd away Thy praise beyond the toml). The statesman's fame To eat the bread of bondage; or escaped Will fade, the conqueror's laurel crown grow sere; Beneath the shadow of Britannia's shield, Fame's loudest truinp upon the ear of Time There only safe. Such fate liave vicious courts, Leaves but a dying echo. They alone Statesmen corrupt, and fear-struck policy, Are hield in everlasting memory, Upon themselves drawn down; till Europe, bound Whose dceds partake of heaven. Long ages hence In iron chains, lies bleeding in the dust, Nations unborn, in cities that shall rise Bencach the feet of upstart tyranny: Along the palmy coast, will bless thy name; Only the hieroic Spaniard, he alone And Senegie and secret Niger's shore, Yei unsubdued in these degenerate days, And Calabar, no longer started then With desperate virtue, such as in old timo With sounds of murder, will, like Isis now, Ilallow'd Saguntum aud Numantia's name, Ring with the songs that tell of Greuville's praise. Stands up against the oppressor undismayil: 1810. So may the Almighty bless the noble race, And crown with happy end their holiest cause! BOTANY-BAY ECLOGUES. Deem not these dread events the monstrous birth Of chance! And thou, O England, who dost ride Where a sight shall shuddering Sorrow find, Sad as the ruins of the human mind. ELINOR. Time, Morning. Soene, the Shore. ONCE more to daily toil, once more to wear Shall soon or late be dealt!-a thought that well The livery of shame, once more to search Might fill the stoutest heart of all thy sons With miserable task this sayage shore ! With awful apprehension! Therefore, they O thou who mountest so triumphantly Who fear the Eternal's justice, bless thy name, In yonder Heaven, beginning thy career Grenville, because the wrongs of Africa Of glory, O thou blessed Sun! ty beams Cry out no more to draw a curse from heaven Fall on me with the savie benigoant light On England;—for if still the trooping sharks Here, at the furthest limits of the world, Track by the scent of death the accursed ship And blasted as I am with infamy, Freighted with human anguislı, in hier wake As when in better years poor ELINOR Pursue the chase, crowd round her keel, and dart Gazed on thy glad uprise with eye undimmu'a |