English

SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE AT OXFORD, UPON INSTALLATION OF LORD GRENVILLE .

Grenville, few years have had their course since last
Exulting Oxford view'd a spectacle
Like this day's pomp; and yet to those throng'd
These walls, which echo'd then with Portland praise,
What change hath intervened! The bloom spy
Is fled from many a cheek, where roseate joy
And beauty bloom'd; the inexorable Grave
Hath claim'd its portion; and the band of youths,
Who then, collected here as in a port,
From whence to launch on life's adventurous sea,

WHO HAD SERVED IN THE SLAVE TRADE .

I T was a Christian minister,
Who, in the month of flowers,
Walk'd forth at eve amid the fields
Near Bristol's ancient towers, —

When, from a lonely out-house breathed,
He heard a voice of woe,
And groans which less might seem from pain,
Than wretchedness, to flow.

Heart-rending groans they were, with words
Of bitterest despair;

O thou, who from the mountain's height
Rollest thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Nile's majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark, sepulchral plain
Recallest Carthage in her ancient pride,
The mistress of the Main;
Hear, Genius, hear thy children's cry!
Not always shouldst thou love to brood
Stern o'er the desert solitude
Where seas of sand heave their hot surges high;
Nor, Genius, should the midnight song
Detain thee in some milder mood
The palmy plains among,
Where Gambia to the torches' light

SONNET VI.

High in the air exposed the slave is hung,
To all the birds of heaven, their living food!
He groans not, though awaked by that fierce sun
New torturers live to drink their parent blood:
He groans not, though the gorging vulture tear
The quivering fibre. Hither look, O ye
Who tore this man from peace and liberty!
Look hither, ye who weigh with politic care
The gain against the guilt! Beyond the grave
There is another world! — bear ye in mind,
Ere your decree proclaims to all mankind

SONNET V.

Did then the Negro rear at last the sword
Of vengeance? Did he plunge its thirsty blade
In the hard heart of his inhuman lord?
Oh, who shall blame him? in the midnight shall
There came on him the intolerable thought
Of every past delight; his native grove,
Friendship's best joys, and liberty and love,
Forever lost. Such recollections wrought
His brain to madness. Wherefore should he
Longer with abject patience to endure
His wrongs and wretchedness, when hope can go

SONNET IV.

'T IS night; the unrelenting owners sleep
As undisturb'd as Justice; but no more
The o'erwearred slave, as on his native shore,
Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep
Though through the toil and anguish of the day
No tear escaped him, not one suffering groan
Beneath the twisted thong, he weeps alone
In bitterness; thinking that far away
While happy Negroes join the midnight song,
And merriment resounds on Niger's shore,
She whom he loves, far from the cheerful throne

SONNET III.

O H , he is worn with toil! the big drops run
Down his dark cheek; hold — hold thy merciless hand,
Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command
O'erwearied nature sinks. The scorching sun
As pitiless as proud Prosperity,
Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies
Arraigning with his looks the patient skies,
While that inhuman driver lifts on high
The mangling scourge. O ye who at your ease
Sip the blood-sweeten'd beverage, thoughts these
Haply ye scorn: I thank thee, gracious God,

SONNET II.

Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,
And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries?
Before the gale the laden vessel flies;
The Heavens all-favoring smile, the breeze is fair;
Hark to the clamors of the exulting crew!
Hark, how their cannon mock the patient skies!
Why dost thou shriek, and strain thy red-swollen eyes,
As the white sail is lessening from thy view?
Go, pine in want, and anguish, and despair;
There is no mercy found in human-kind!

SONNET I.

Hold your mad hands! forever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
Forever must your Niger's tainted flood
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! and learn at length to know,
And turn your vengeance on the common foe,
Yon treacherous vessel and her godless crew!
Let never traders with false pretext fair
Set on your shores again their wicked feet:
With interdict and indignation meet
Repel them, and with fire and sword pursue!

THE THIRD BOOK

The Maiden, musing on the warrior's words,
Turn'd from the Hall of Glory. Now they reach'd
A cavern, at whose mouth a Genius stood,
In front a beardless youth, whose smiling eye
Beam'd promise, but behind, wither'd and old,
And all unlovely. Underneath his feet
Records obliterate lay, and laurels sear.
He held an hour-glass, and as the sands fall,
So pass the lives of men. By him they past
Along the darksome cave, and reach'd a stream,
Still rolling onward its perpetual course