Well, I protest 'tis past all bearingChild! I am rather hard of hearingYes, truly; one must scream and ball : I tell you, you can't hear at all! Then, with a voice exceeding low, No matter if you hear or no. Alas! and is domestic strife, That sorest ill of human life, A plague so little to be feared, As to be wantonly incurred, To gratify a fretful passion, On every trivial provocation? The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear: And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive. But if infirmities, that fall In common to the lot of all, A blemish or a sense impaired, Are crimes so little to be spared, Then farewell all that must create The comfort of the wedded state; Instead of harmony, 'tis jar, And tumult, and intestine war. The love that cheers life's latest stage, Proof against sickness and old age, Preserved by virtue from declension, Becomes not weary of attention; But lives, when that exterior grace, Which first inspired the flame, decays, "Tis gentle, delicate, and kind, To faults compassionate or blind, And will with sympathy endure Those evils it would gladly cure: But angry, coarse, and harsh expression Shows love to be a mere profession; Proves that the heart is none of his, Or soon expels him if it is. THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. FORCED from home and all its pleasures, To increase a stranger's treasures, Still in thought as free as ever, Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same. Why did all creating Nature Make the plant for which we toil? Sighs must fan it, tears must water, Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Think, ye masters, iron-hearted, Lolling at your jovial boards; Think how many backs have smarted For the sweets your cane affords. Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, Speaking from his throne the sky? Hark! he answers-wild tornadoes, Afric's sons should undergo, By our blood in Afric wasted, Ere our necks received the chain; Deem our nation brutes no longer, PITY FOR POOR AFRICANS. 'Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor.' 1 Own I am shocked at the purchase of slaves, And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves; What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans, Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. 1 pity them greatly, but I must be mum, What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea? Besides, if we do, the French, Dutch, and Danes, If foreigners likewise would give up the trade, Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest, He was shocked, sir, like you, and answered-'Oh no! What! rob our good neighbour! I pray you don't go; Besides, the man's poor, his orchard's his bread, You speak very fine, and you look very grave, They spoke, and Tom pondered 'I see they will go: Poor man! what a pity to injure him so! Poor man! I would save him his fruit if I could, But staying behind would do him no good. 'If the matter depended alone upon me, His apples might hang till they dropped from the tree But, since they will take them, I think I'll go too, He will lose none by me, though I get a few. His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease. And went with his comrades the apples to seize; He blamed and protested, but joined in the plan; He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man. THE MORNING DREAM. "TWAS in the lad season of spring, Far hence to the westward I sailed, And the fresh-blowing breeze never failed. In the steerage a woman I saw, Such at least was the form that she wore, Then raising her voice to a strain The sweetest that ear ever heard,. She sung of the slave's broken chain, Wherever her glory appeared. |