If foreigners likewise would give up the trade, 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! "You speak very fine, and you look very grave, They spoke, and Tom ponder'd-"I see they will go: Poor man! I would save him his fruit if I could, "If the matter depended alone upon me, His apples might hang till they dropp'd from the tree; 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 silenc'd, Tom felt more at ease, THE MORNING DREAM. 'Twas in the glad season of spring, I dream'd what I cannot but sing, 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 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 she liberty sung, 'Twas liberty only to hear. Thus swiftly dividing the flood, To a slave-cultur'd island we came Where a demon, her enemy, stoodOppression his terrible name. In his hand, as the sign of his sway, But soon as approaching the land, That goddesslike woman he view'd, The scourge he let fall from his hand, With blood of his subjects imbru'd. I saw him both sicken and die, And the moment the monster 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 should betide? But soon my ear caught the glad news, Which serv'd my weak thought for a guideThat Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves For the hatred she ever has shown To the black-sceptred rulers of slaves, Resolves to have none of her own. |