good and faithful servant," whether the plaudit is likely to be echoed in another place.
In this guilty business there is a circumstance which greatly aggravates its guilt, and that is the impiety of calling upon the Divine Being to assist us in it. Almost all nations have been in the habit of mixing with their bad passions a show of religion, and of prefacing these their murders with prayers and the solemnities of worship. When they send out their armies to desolate a country and destroy the fair face of nature, they have the presumption to hope that the Sovereign of the Universe will condescend to be their auxiliary, and to enter into their petty and despicable contests. Their prayer, if put into plain language, would run thus: "God of love, father of all the families of the earth, we are going to tear in pieces our brethren of mankind, but our strength is not equal to our fury; we beseech thee to assist us in the work of slaughter. Go out, we pray thee, with our fleets and armies; we call them Christian, and we have interwoven in our banners and the decorations of our arms, the symbols of a suffering religion, that we may fight under the cross upon which our Saviour died. Whatever mischief we do, we shall do it in thy name; we hope, therefore, thou wilt protect us in it. Thou, who hast made of one blood all the dwellers upon the earth, we trust thou wilt view us alone with partial favor, and enable us to bring misery upon every other quarter of the globe." Now if we really expect such prayers to be answered, we are the weakest, if not, we are the most hypocritical, of beings.
O hear a pensive prisoner's prayer,
For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the wretch's cries!
For here forlorn and sad I sit,
Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at the approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.
If e'er thy breast with freedom glowed,
And spurned a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain!
Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air.
O do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth!
Nor triumph that thy wiles betrayed
A prize so little worth.
The scattered gleanings of a feast
My frugal meals supply;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny-
The cheerful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let Nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of Heaven.
The well-taught, philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
If mind-as ancient sages taught-
A never-dying flame,
Still shifts through matter's varying forms,
In every form the same;
Beware, lest in the worm you crush,
A brother's soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.
Or, if this transient gleam of day
Be all of life we share,
Let pity plead within thy breast
That little all to spare.
So may thy hospitable board
With health and peace be crowned;
And every charm of heartfelt ease
Beneath thy roof be found.
So when destruction lurks unseen,
Which men, like mice, may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare!
O born to soothe distress and lighten care,
Lively as soft, and innocent as fair!
Blest with that sweet simplicity of thought
So rarely found, and never to be taught;
Of winning speech, endearing, artless, kind,
The loveliest pattern of a female mind;
Like some fair spirit from the realms of rest,
With all her native heaven within her breast;
So pure, so good, she scarce can guess at sin,
But thinks the world without like that within;
Such melting tenderness, so fond to bless,
Her charity almost becomes excess.
Wealth may be courted, Wisdom be revered,
And Beauty praised, and brutal strength be feared;
But Goodness only can affection move,
And love must owe its origin to love.
O thou, the Nymph with placid eye!
O seldom found, yet ever nigh!
Receive my temperate vow:
Not all the storms that shake the pole
Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul,
And smooth unaltered brow.
O come, in simple vest arrayed,
With all thy sober cheer displayed,
To bless my longing sight;
Thy mien composed, thy even pace,
Thy meek regard, thy matron grace,
And chaste subdued delight.
No more by varying passions beat,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit cell;
Where in some pure and equal sky,
Beneath thy soft indulgent eye,
The modest virtues dwell
Simplicity in Attic vest,
And Innocence with candid breast,
And clear undaunted eye;
And Hope, who points to distant years,
Fair opening through this vale of tears
A vista to the sky.
There Health, through whose calm bosom glide
The temperate joys in even tide,
That rarely ebb or flow;
And Patience there, thy sister meek,
Presents her mild unvarying cheek
To meet the offered blow.
Her influence taught the Phrygian sage
A tyrant master's wanton rage
With settled smiles to meet:
Inured to toil and bitter bread,
He bowed his meek submitted head,
And kissed thy sainted feet.
But thou, O Nymph retired and coy!
In what brown hamlet dost thou joy
To tell thy tender tale?
The lowliest children of the ground,
Moss-rose, and violet blossom round,
And lily of the vale.
O say what soft propitious hour
I best may choose to hail thy power,
And court thy gentle sway?
When Autumn, friendly to the Muse,
Shall thy own modest tints diffuse,
And shed thy milder day;
When Eve, her dewy star beneath,
Thy balmy spirit loves to breathe,
And every storm is laid;
If such an hour was e'er thy choice,
Oft let me hear thy soothing voice
Low whispering through the shade.
O Wisdom! if thy soft control
Can soothe the sickness of the soul,
Can bid the warring passions cease,
And breathe the calm of tender peace;
Wisdom! I bless thy gentle sway,
And ever, ever will obey.
But if thou com'st with frown austere,
To nurse the brood of Care and Fear;
To bid our sweetest passions die,
And leave us in their room a sigh;
O, if thine aspect stern have power
To wither each poor transient flower
That cheers this pilgrimage of woe,
And dry the springs whence hope should flow;
Wisdom! thine empire I disclaim,
Thou empty boast of pompous name!
In gloomy shade of cloisters dwell,
But never haunt my cheerful cell.
Hail to Pleasure's frolic train!
Hail to Fancy's golden reign!
Festive Mirth, and Laughter wild,
Free and sportful as the child!
Hope with eager, sparkling eyes,
And easy faith, and fond surprise!
Let these, in fairy colors drest,
For ever share my careless breast:
Then, though wise I may not be,
The wise themselves shall envy me.
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;
In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found:
In vain, to push to birth thy great design,
Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power possest
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 honor 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!
For you, whose tempered ardor long has borne
Untired the labor, and unmoved the scorn;
In Virtue's fasti be inscribed your fame,
And uttered yours with Howard's honored name;
Friends of the friendless-Hail, ye generous band!
Whose efforts yet arrest Heaven's lifted hand,
Around whose steady brows, in union bright,
The civic wreath and Christian's palm unite:
Your merit stands, no greater and no less,
Without, or with the varnish of success:
But seek no more to break a nation's fall,
For ye have saved yourselves—and that is all.
Succeeding times your struggles, and their fate,
With mingled shame and triumph shall relate;
While faithful History, in her various page,
Marking the features of this motley age,
On the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade, 1791.
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