How would it open every secret cell Where cherished thought and fond remembrance sleep! How many a tale each conscious step would tell! But O the chief!—If in thy feeling breast The tender charities of life reside, If there domestic love have built her nest, And thy fond heart a parent's cares divide; Go seek the turf where worth, where wisdom lies, Wisdom and worth, ah, never to return! There, kneeling, weep my tears, and breathe my sighs, A daughter's sorrows o'er her father's urn! EPISTLE TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, Esq. ON THE REJECTION OF THE BILL FOR ABOLISHING THE SLAVE TRADE, 1791. CEASE, Wilberforce, to urge thy generous aim! Thy Country knows the sin, and stands the shame! Has rattled in her sight the Negro's chain; With his deep groans assailed her startled ear, Beneath the bloody scourge laid bare the man, Claimed Pity's tear, urged Conscience' strong controul, And flashed conviction on her shrinking soul. The Muse too, soon awaked, with ready tongue At Mercy's shrine applausive pæans rung; And Freedom's eager sons in vain foretold A new Astrean reign, an age of gold: She knows and she persists-Still Afric bleeds, And on her hardened forehead seals the crime. In vain, to thy white standard gathering round, The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds, The' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds :: Bane of ingenuous minds !-the' unfeeling sneer, Which sudden turns to stone the falling tear: They search assiduous, with inverted skill, For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill; Forbear!-thy virtues but provoke our doom, Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow-man! And injured Afric, by herself redresst, Darts her own serpents at her tyrant's breast. Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known, With sure contagion fastens on his own ; In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame, And blows to rage impetuous Passion's flame: 50 Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains The milky innocence of infant veins ; There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire, The whirlwind wakes of uncontrouled desire, Sears the young heart to images of woe, And blasts the buds of Virtue as they blow. Lo! where reclined, pale Beauty courts the breeze, Diffused on sofas of voluptuous ease; With anxious awe her menial train around Catch her faint whispers of half-uttered sound; » See her, in monstrous fellowship, unite At once the Scythian and the Sybarite! Blending repugnant vices, misallied, Which frugal nature purposed to divide ; See her, with indolence to fierceness joined, Of body delicate, infirm of mind, With languid tones imperious mandates urge; With arm recumbent wield the household scourge; |