A few seem favourites of state,
In pleasure's lap carest,
Yet think not all the rich and great
Are likewise truly blest;
But oh! what crouds in ev'ry land
Are wretched and forlorn;
Thro' weary life this lesson learn,
That man was made to mourn!
Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame;
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret-remorse and shame.
And Man, whose heav'n-erected face The smiles of love adorn:
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
See yonder poor o'er-labour'd wight,
So abject, mean and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil;
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife
And helpless offspring mourn!
If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave
By nature's law design'd,
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind.
If not-why am I subject to
His cruelty or scorn;
Or why has man the will or pow'r
To make his fellow mourn?
Yet let not this too much my son
Disturb thy youthful breast;
This partial view of human kind
Is surely not the last :
The poor oppressed honest man
Had never sure been born,
Had there not been some recompence
To comfort those that mourn!
O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best:
Welcome the hour my aged limbs
Are laid with thee at rest!
The great and wealthy fear thy blow,
From pomp and pleasure torn;
But oh! a blest relief to those
That weary-laden mourn!
O! does not mercy shudder to behold
Life-freedom barter'd for a Christian's gold!
Yes-mark the wretch who torn from Congo's
Uplifts in vain his supplicating hands:
And looks and weeps, and looks to look no more,
On that fond home, that sun illumin'd shore:
Condemn'd by pow'r by trade's unfeeling lust,
On Indian isles to bow his neck to dust.
Inhuman deed! with systematic plan,
To sell the life the liberty of man!
And say, ye statesmen, coldly, who discuss
The fate of him who sadly suffers thus,
Do long subjection and unceasing toil,
The scourge, the chains, the fetter and the soil,
Unhinge, undo the mental fabric so,
That nature loves habituated woe;
That stripes are pleasures, and that men set free Would weep for freedom as a misery?
Thus, thus will Trade unconquer'd still by time,
Raise her base voice to cloak the hellish crime;
Thus will she lift the lash, and lifting smile,
As blood-earn'd-lucre centers in her isle;
Poor friendless Slave! though sable is thy skin,
Thou art a Man-thou hast a soul within!
Methinks I see thee as the trumpet-horn,
Breaks on thy sleepless couch, and hails the
Steal to the shore, uplift thine eyes and weep, Then plunge in wild despair beneath the deep. Poor wretch! he thinks when all his woes are
And tyrant-stripes extort the groan no more,
On wings of bliss his palmy land to know,
His painted quiver and his hunter-bow:
To range the woods, and see restor❜d again,
The tiger-spoils the friendly forms of Men!
Friend to the wretch whom every friend for
I woo thee, Death! in fancy's fairy paths
Let the gay songster rove, and gently trill
The strain of empty joy. Life and its joys
I leave to those that prize them. At this hour,
This solemn hour, when silence rules the world,
And wearied nature makes a gen'ral pause;
Wrapt in night's sable robe, through cloysters
drear
And charnels pale, tenanted by a throng
Of meagre phantoms shooting cross my path
With silent glance, I seek the shadowy vale
Of death. Deep in a murky cave's recess,
Lav'd by Oblivion's listless stream, and fenc'd
By shelving rocks, and intermingled horrors
Of yew and cypress shade, from all intrusion
Of busy noontide beam, the Monarch sits
In unsubstantial majesty enthron'd.
At his right hand, nearest himself in place
And frightfulness of form, his parent Sin
With fatal industry and cruel care
Busies herself in pointing all his strings,
And tipping every shaft with venom drawn
From her infernal store: around him rang'd
In terrible array, and mixture strange
Of uncouth shapes, stand his dread ministers.
Foremost old age, his natural ally
And firmest friend: next him diseases thick,
A motley train; fever, with cheek of fire;
Consumption wan; palsy, half warm with life,
And half a clay-clod lump; joint-tort'ring gout,
And ever-gnawing rheum; convulsion wild;
Swoln dropsy; panting asthina; apoplex
Full-gorg'd. There too the pestilence that walks
In darkness, and the sickness that destroys
At broad noon-day. These, and a thousand more,
Horrid to tell, attentive wait; and, when
By Heav'n's command Death waves his ebon wand,
Sudden rush forth to execute his purpose,
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