How would it open every secret cell

Where cherished thought and fond remembrance sleep!

How many a tale each conscious step would tell!
How many a parted friend these eyes would weep!

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!
The Preacher, Poet, Senator in vain

Has rattled in her sight the Negro's chain;

With his deep groans assailed her startled ear,
And rent the veil that hid his constant tear;
Forced her averted eyes his stripes to scan,

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,
Unchecked, the human traffic still proceeds;
She stamps her infamy to future time,

And on her hardened forehead seals the crime.

In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found : 2 ?
In vain, to push to birth thy great design,
Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power possesst
To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast.
Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail,
A Nation's eloquence, combined, must fail:
Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try;
The plausive argument, the daring lie,

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;
With impious mockery wrest the sacred page,
And glean up crimes from each remoter age :
Wrung Nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell,
From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell;
In Britain's senate, Misery's pangs give birth
To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth

Forbear!-thy virtues but provoke our doom,
And swell the' account of vengeance yet to come;
For, not unmarked in Heaven's impartial plan,

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;