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Yes! in that generous caufe for ever strong,

The patriot's virtue, and the poet's song,

Still, as the tide of ages rolls away,

Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!

Yes! there are hearts, prophetic Hope may truft, 465

That flumber yet in uncreated duft,

Ordain'd to fire th' adoring fons of earth

With every charm of wifdom and of worth ;

Ordain'd to light, with intellectual day,

The mazy wheels of Nature as they play,

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Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow,

And rival all but Shakspeare's name below!

And fay, fupernal Powers! who deeply fcan Heav'n's dark decrees, unfathom'd yet by man,

When shall the world call down, to cleanfe her shame, 475

That embryo fpirit, yet without a name,—

That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands

Shall burft the Lybian's adamantine bands?

Who, fternly marking on his native foil,

The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,

Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see
Peace to the flave, and vengeance on the free!

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Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day That breaks your bitter cup, is far away;

Trade, wealth, and fashion, afk you ftill to bleed,

485

And holy men give fcripture for the deed;
Scourg'd and debas'd, no Briton stoops to fave

A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave !-

Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand

Had heav'd the floods, and fix'd the trembling land, 490

When life fprung ftartling at thy plastic call,

Endless her forms, and Man the lord of all!

Say, was that lordly form infpir'd by thee

To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee?
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,

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Yok'd with the brutes, and fetter'd to the foil;

Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold?

No! Nature ftamp'd us in a heav'nly mould!

She bade no wretch his thanklefs labour urge,

Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the fcourge! 500

No homeless Lybian, on the ftormy deep,

To call upon his country's name, and weep!

Lo! once in triumph on his boundless plain, The quiver'd chief of Congo lov'd to reign;

With fires proportion'd to his native sky,

Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scour'd with wild feet his fun-illumin❜d zone,

The fpear, the lion, and the woods his own;

Or led the combat, bold without a plan,

An artless favage, but a fearless man!

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The plunderer came :-alas no glory smiles

For Congo's chief on yonder Indian ifles;

For ever fallen! no fon of Nature now,

With Freedom charter'd on his manly brow!

Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away, 515

And, when the fea-wind wafts the dewless day,

Starts, with a bursting heart, for evermore

To curfe the fun that lights their guilty fhore!

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Unhallow'd vows to Guilt, the child of Woe!

520

Friendless thy heart; and, canft thou harbour there 525 A wifh but death-a paffion but despair?

The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires,

Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires!

So falls the heart at Thraldrom's bitter figh!

So Virtue dies, the fpoufe of Liberty!

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