MILTON. SLAVERY. O EXECRABLE SON, so to aspire THE HORRORS OF SLAVERY DEPLORED. COWPER. My ear is pained, My soul is sick, with every day's report There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, sweat With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price, I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home-then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles · fall. That's noble! and bespeaks a nation proud Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. THE NEGRO'S DEPARTURE FROM AFRICA. SHENSTONE. ON the wild heath in mournful guise he stood 'Why am I ravish'd from my native strand? What savage race protects this impious gain? Shall foreign plagues infest this teeming land, And more than sea-born monsters plough the main? "Here the dire locusts' horrid swarms pre vail; Here the blue asps with livid poison swell; Here the dry dipsa writhes his sinuous mail; | Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, "When the grim lion urg'd his cruel chase, When the stern panther sought his midnight prey, What fate preserved me for this Christian race? O race more polish'd, more severe, than they. "Yet shores there are, bless'd shores for us remain, Is there one, who reigns on high? Speaking from his throne, the sky? Matches, blood-extorting screws, Hark! he answers-Wild tornadoes, And favour'd isles, with golden fruitage He, foreseeing what vexations Where tufted flow'rets paint the verdant plain, And ev'ry breeze shall med'cine ev'ry wound." THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. COWPER. FORCED from home and all its pleasures, Men from England bought and sold me, But, though theirs they have enrolled me, Still in thought as free as ever, Why did all-creating nature Make the plant for which we toil? Afric's sons should undergo, By our blood in Afric wasted, Ere our necks received the chain; Crossing in your barks, the main ! Deem our nation brutes no longer, THE SLAVE TRADE. ANON. FRANCE, and Spain, and Portugal, Long has righteous vengeance slumber'd; |