SONNET

ADDRESSED TO

HENRY COWPER, ESQ.

On his emphatical and interesting delivery of the Defence

of WARREN Hastings, Esq. in the House of Lords.

Cowper, whose silver voice, task'd sometimes hard,

Legends prolix delivers in the ears(Attentive when thou read'ft) of England's Peers,

Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward. Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard,

Expending late on all that length of plea
Thy gen'rous pow'rs, but silence honour'd thee

Mute as e'ér gaz'd on Orator or Bard.
Thou art not voice alone, but haft beside

Both heart and head; and could'st with music sweet

Of attic phrase and senatorial tone,
Like thy renown'd Forefathers, far and wide

Thy fame diffuse, prais'd not for utt'rance meet
Of others' speech, but magic of thy own.

THE MORNING DREAM.

"Twas in the glad season of spring,

Asleep at the dawn of the day,
I dream'd what I cannot but fing,

So pleasant it seem'd as I lay.
I dream'd that on ocean afloat,

Far hence to the westward I faild, While the billows high-lifted the boat,

And the fresh-blowing breeze never fail'd.

In the steerage a woman I saw,

Such at least was the form that she wore, Whose beauty impress’d me with awe,

Ne'er taught me by woman before. She sat, and a shield at her side

Shed light like a sun on the waves, And smiling divinely, she cry'd

I go to make Freemen of Slaves.

Then raising her voice to a strain

The sweetest that ear ever heard,

She sung of the slave's broken chain

Wherever her glory appear d.
Some clouds which had over us hung

Fled, chas'd by her melody clear,
And methought while the Liberty fung,

'Twas Liberty only to hear.

Thus swiftly dividing the flood

To a flave-cultur'd island we came,
Where a Demon, her enemy, stood

Oppression his terrible name.
In his hand, as the sign of his sway,

A scourge hung with lathes he bore, And stood looking out for his prey

From Africa's forrowful fhore.

But soon as approaching the land

That goddess-like woman he view'd, The scourge he let fall from his hand,

With blood of his subjects imbrued. I saw him both ficken and die,

And the moment the monfter expir'd Heard shouts that ascended the sky

From thousands with rapture inspir'd. Awaking, how could I but muse

At what such a dream fhould betide ? But soon my ear caught the glad news

Which servd my weak thought for a guideThat Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves

For the hatred she ever has shown To the black-fceptred rulers of flaves,

Resolves to have none of her own.

VERSES

PRINTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE

YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY

OF THE TOWN OF NORTHAMPTON,

Dec. 21, 1787.

Pallida Mors.æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres.
Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

While thirteen moons saw smoothly run

The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,

Have found their home-the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail

Than in foregoing years?
Did famine, or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears?

No; these were vigorous as their fires,

Nor plague nor famine came; This annual tribute Death requires,

And never waves his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,

And some are mark'd to fall; The axe will smite at God's command,

And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,

With its new foliage on, The gay, the thoughtless have I seen;

I pass’d—and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the awful truth

With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,

And at the root of age.