Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, Is there one who reigns on high? Has he bid you buy and sell us, Speaking from his throne the sky? Ask him, if your knotted Scourges, Matches, blood-extorting screws, Are the means that duty urges Agents of his will to use? Hark! he answers wild tornadoes, Where his whirlwinds answer By our blood in Afric wasted, . No. Ere our necks received the chain; By the miseries that we tasted, Crossing in your barks the main ; By our sufferings, since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart; All sustain'd by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart; Deem our nation brutes no longer, Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings PITY FOR POOR AFRICANS. Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor. I OWN I am shock'd at the purchase of slaves, And fear those, who buy them and sell them, are knaves; [groans, What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea! Besides, if we do, the French, Dutch, and Danes Will heartily thank us, no doubt, for our pains: If we do not buy the poor creatures, they will, And tortures and groans will be multiplied still. If foreigners likewise would give up the trade, Much more in behalf of your wish might be said; But, while they get riches by purchasing blacks, Pray tell me why we may not also go snacks? Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest, His comrades had plotted an orchard to rob, He was shock'd, sir, like you, and answer'd— "Oh no! [don't go ; What! rob our good neighbour! I pray you Besides the man's poor, his orchard's his bread, Then think of his children, for they must be fed." "You speak very fine, and you look very grave, But apples we want, and apples we'll have; If you will go with us, you shall have a share, If not, you shall have neither apple nor pear." They spoke, and Tom ponder'd-"I see they will go: Poor man! what a pity to injure him so ! "If the matter depended alone upon me, [tree; His apples might hang till they dropp'd from the But since they will take them, I think I'll go too, He will lose none by me, though I get a few.” His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease, And went with his comrades the apples to seize; He blamed and protested, but join'd in the plan: He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man. THE MORNING DREAM. "TWAS in the glad season of spring, Far hence to the westward I sail'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 cried"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, Thus swiftly dividing the flood, To a slave-cultured island we came, But soon as approaching the land, And the moment the monster expired, Awaking, how could I but muse At what such a dream should betide? To the black-sceptred rulers of slaves, |