With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she fees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, feeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head to think himself a man? I would not have a flave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I fleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That finews bought and fold have ever earn'd. No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price, I had much rather be myself the flave,
And wear the bonds, than faften them on him. We have no flaves 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 fhackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the bleffing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that where Britain's power Is felt mankind may feel her mercy too. Sure there is need of focial intercourse, Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, Between the nations in a world that seems To toll the deathbell of its own decease, And by the voice of all its elements To preach the general doom.*
* Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica.
Let flip with such a warrant to destroy? When did the waves fo haughtily o'erleap Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry? Fires from beneath, and meteors* from above, Portentous, unexampled, unexplain'd,
Have kindled beacons in the fkies; and the old And crazy earth has had her shaking fits More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. Is it a time to wrangle, when the props And pillars of our planet seem to fail, And Nature with a dim and fickly eye To wait the clofe of all? But grant her end More diftant, and that prophecy demands A longer refpite, unaccomplish'd yet; Still they are frowning fignals, and bespeak Displeasure in His breast who fmites the earth Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. And 'tis but feemly, that, where all deserve And ftand exposed by common peccancy To what no few have felt, there should be peace, And brethren in calamity should love.
Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now Lie scatter'd where the fhapely column ftood. Her palaces are duft. In all her streets The voice of finging and the sprightly chord Are filent. Revelry, and dance, and fhow Suffer a fyncope and solemn pause;
While God performs upon the trembling stage
+ Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Afia during the whole fummer of 1783.
Of his own works his dreadful part alone. How does the earth receive him?-with what figns Of gratulation and delight her King?
Pours the not all her choiceft fruits abroad, Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums, Difclofing Paradife where'er he treads?
She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb, Conceiving thunders, through a thoufand deeps And fiery caverns, roars beneath his foot.
The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, For He has touch'd them. From the extremeft point Of elevation down into the abyss
His wrath is bufy, and his frown is felt.
The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise, The rivers die into offenfive pools,
And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a grofs And mortal nuisance into all the air.
What folid was, by transformation strange, Grows fluid; and the fix'd and rooted earth, Tormented into billows, heaves and fwells, Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl Sucks down its prey infatiable. Immense The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs And agonies of human and of brute Multitudes, fugitive on every fide, And fugitive in vain. The fylvan scene Migrates uplifted; and, with all its soil Alighting in far diftant fields, finds out A new poffeffor, and survives the change. Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought To an enormous and o'erbearing height, Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore Refiftlefs. Never fuch a fudden flood,
Upridged fo high, and sent on such a charge, Poffeff'd an inland fcene. Where now the throng That preff'd the beach, and, hafty to depart, Look'd to the fea for fafety? They are gone, Gone with the refluent wave into the deep- A prince with half his people! Ancient towers, And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume Life in the unproductive fhades of death, Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth, And, happy in their unforeseen release From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy The terrors of the day that sets them free. Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast, Freedom! whom they that lofe thee fo regret, That e'en a judgement, making way for thee, Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy fake.
Such evil Sin hath wrought; and fuch a flame Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth, And, in the furious inquest that it makes On God's behalf, lays waste his fairest works. The very elements, though each be meant The minifter of man, to ferve his wants, Confpire against him. With his breath he draws A plague into his blood; and cannot use Life's neceffary means, but he must die. Storms rife to o'erwhelm him: or if ftormy winds Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise, And, needing none affistance of the storm, Shall roll themselves afhore, and reach him there.
The earth fhall fhake him out of all his holds, Or make his house his grave: nor so content, Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood, And drown him in her dry and dufty gulfs. What then!-were they the wicked above all, And we the righteous, whose fast-anchor'd isle Moved not, while theirs was rock'd, like a light skiff, The fport of every wave? No: none are clear, And none than we more guilty. But, where all Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark: May punish, if he please, the less, to warn The more malignant. If he fpared not them, Tremble and be amazed at thine escape, Far guiltier England, left he spare not thee! Happy the man who fees a God employ'd In all the good and ill that chequer life! Refolving all events, with their effects And manifold refults, into the will And arbitration wife of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns (fince from the least The greatest oft originate); could chance Find place in his dominion, or dispose One lawless particle to thwart his plan; Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen Contingence might alarm him, and disturb The smooth and equal course of his affairs. This truth Philofophy, though eagle-eyed In Nature's tendencies, oft overlooks; And, having found his inftrument, forgets, Or difregards, or, more prefumptuous still,
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