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, 470 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 480 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; 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? 495 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; The fpear, the lion, and the woods his own; Or led the combat, bold without a plan, An artless favage, but a fearless man! 505 510 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! 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! 530 |