Who, sternly marking on his native soil, Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day That breaks your bitter cup, is far away; Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed, And holy men give scripture for the deed; Scourged and debased, no Briton stoops to save A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave! Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand Had heaved the floods, and fixed the trembling land, Lo! once in triumph on his boundless plain, Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye! The plunderer came :-alas! no glory smiles For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles! For ever fallen! no son of Nature now, With Freedom chartered on his manly brow; Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away, And, when the seawind wafts the dewless day, Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore. The shrill horn blew! (k) at that alarum knell His guardian angel took a last farewell! That funeral dirge to darkness esigned The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!— Poor fettered man! I hear thee whispering low Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Wo! Friendless thy heart! and, canst thou harbour there A wish but death-a passion but despair? The widowed Indian, when her lord expires, But not to Libya's barren climes alone, How long your tribes have trembled, and obeyed! Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame, When Europe sought your subject realms to gain, And stretched her giant sceptre o'er the main, Taught her proud barks their winding way to shape, And braved the stormy spirit of the Cape; (m) Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye? Did Peace descend, to triumph and to save, When free-born Britons crossed the Indian wave? Ah, no!-to more than Rome's ambition true, The Nurse of Freedom gave it not to you! She the bold route of Europe's guilt began, And in the march of nations, led the van! Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone, And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own Degenerate Trade! thy minions could despise The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries; Could lock, with impious hands, their teeming store, While famished nations died along the shore; (n) Could mock the groans of fellow-men, and bear The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair! Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name, And barter, with their gold, eternal shame! But hark! as bowed to earth the Bramin kneels, From heavenly climes propitious thunder peals! Of India's fate her guardian spirits tell, Prophetic murmurs breathing on the shell, And solemn sounds, that awe the list'ning mind, Roll on the azure paths of every wind. "Foes of mankind! (her guardian spirits say) Revolving ages bring the bitter day, When Heaven's unerring arm shall fall on you, "To pour redress on India's injured realm, END OF PART FIRST. с |