And leap o'er the bounds of his birth, To ravage the uttermost earth,

And violate nations and realms that should be
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea?

There are, gloomy ocean, a brotherless clan,
Who traverse thy banishing waves,
The poor disinherited outcasts of man,
Whom avarice coins into slaves.

graves,

Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss,
They are dragg'd on the hoary abyss;

The shark hears their shrieks, and ascending to-day,
Demands of the spoiler his share of the prey.
Then joy to the tempest that whelms them beneath,
And makes their destruction its sport;
But wo to the winds that propitiously breathe,
And waft them in safety to port,

Where the vultures and vampires of Mammon resort;

Where Europe exultingly drains
The life-blood from Africa's veins;

Where man rules o'er man with a merciless rod,
And spurns at his footstool the image of God.

The hour is approaching-a terrible hour!
And Vengeance is bending her bow;
Already the clouds of the hurricane lower,
And the rock-rending whirlwinds blow:
Back tolls the huge ocean, hell opens below:
The floods return headlong,-they sweep
The slave-cultured lands to the deep,

In a moment entomb'd in the horrible void,
By their Maker himself in his anger destroy'd.

Shall this be the fate of the cane-planted isles,
More lovely than clouds in the west,

For reprobate glory and gold:

Thy distant dominions like wild graftings shoot, They weigh down thy trunk,-they will tear up thy root:

The root of thine OAK, O my country! that stands

Rock-planted and flourishing free;

Its branches are stretch'd o'er the uttermost lands,
And its shadow eclipses the sea:

The blood of our ancestors nourish'd the tree;
From their tombs, from their ashes it sprung;
Its boughs with their trophies are hung;
Their spirit dwells in it:-and, hark! for it spoke;
The voice of our fathers ascends from their oak:-
"Ye Britons, who dwell where we conquer'd of old,
Who inherit our battle-field graves;

Though poor were your fathers,-gigantic and bold,
We were not, we could not be, slaves;

But firm as our rocks, and as free as our waves,
The spears of the Romans we broke,

We never stoop'd under their yoke;

In the shipwreck of nations we stood up alone,-
The world was great Cæsar's-but Britain our own.
"For ages and ages, with barbarous foes,
The Saxon, Norwegian, and Gaul,

We wrestled, were foil'd, were cast down, but we

rose

With new vigour, new life, from each fall:

Sinks softly and sweetly to rest?

-No-Father of mercy! befriend the opprest;
At the voice of thy gospel of peace

May the sorrows of Africa cease;
And slave and his master devoutly unite

To walk in thy freedom, and dwell in thy light!*

As homeward my weary-wing'd fancy extends,
Her star-lighted course through the skies,
High over the mighty Atlantic ascends,
And turns upon Europe her eyes:

Ah, me! what new prospects, new horrors arise?
I see the war-tempested flood

All foaming, and panting with blood;
The panic-struck ocean in agony roars,
Rebounds from the battle, and flies to his shores.

For Britannia is wielding the trident to-day
Consuming her foes in her ire,

And hurling her thunder with absolute sway
From her wave-ruling chariots of fire:
--She triumphs;-the winds and the waters

spire,

To spread her invincible name; -The universe rings with her fame;

ALL.

-The cruel, and cannibal mind,

We soften'd, subdued, and refined;

Bears, wolves, and sea-monsters, they rush'd from their den;

We taught them, we tamed them, we turn'd them

to men.

"Love led the wild hordes in his flower-woven

bands,

*Alluding to the glorious success of the Moravian missionaries among the Negroes in the West Indies.

That joy and grief, and hope and fear,
Alternate triumph'd in his breast:
His bliss and wo,-a smile, a tear!
-Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoy'd, but his delights are fled;
Had friends, his friends are now no more;
And foes, his foes are dead.

He loved,--but whom he loved, the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O she was fair-but naught could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encounter'd all that troubles thee;
He was-whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.

The rolling seasons, day and night,
Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life, and light,
To him exist in vain.

The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.

The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of HIм afford no other trace
Than this,-THERE LIVED A MAN!

The weeping minstrel sings,

And, while her numbers flow,
My spirit trembles with the strings,
Responsive to the notes of wo.

Would gladness move a sprightlier strain,
And wake his wild harp's clearest tones,
The chords, impatient to complain,
Are dumb, or only utter moans.

And yet, to soothe the mind

With luxury of grief,
The soul to suffering all resign'd

In sorrow's music feels relief.

Thus o'er the light Æolian lyre

The winds of dark November stray, Touch the quick nerve of every wire, And on its magic pulses play;

Till all the air around

Mysterious murmurs fill,

A strange bewildering dream of sound, Most heavenly sweet,--yet mournful still O! snatch the harp from Sorrow's hand,

Hope! who hast been a stranger long; O strike it with sublime command, And be the poet's life thy song.

Of vanish'd troubles sing,

Of fears for ever fled,

Of flowers that hear the voice of spring,
And burst and blossom from the dead:
Of home, contentment, health, repose,
Serene delights, while years increase;
And weary life's triumphant close

In some calm sunset hour of peace;
Of bliss that reigns above,
Celestial May of youth,
Unchanging as Jehovah's love,
And everlasting as his truth:

Sing, heavenly Hope !--and dart thine hand
O'er my frail harp, untuned so long;
That harp shall breathe, at thy command,
Immortal sweetness through thy song.

Ah! then, this gloom control,

And at thy voice shall start
A new creation in my soul,
A native Eden in my heart.

THE HARP OF SORROW.

I GAVE my harp to Sorrow's hand,

And she has ruled the chords so long, They will not speak at my command ;-They warble only to her song.

Of dear, departed hours,

Too fondly loved to last,

The dew, the breath, the bloom of flowers,
Snapt in their freshness by the blast:

Of long, long years of future care,
Till lingering nature yields her breath,
And endless ages of despair,

Beyond the judgment-day of death :-

POPE'S WILLOW.

Verses written for an urn, made out of the trunk of the weeping willow, imported from the East, and planted by Pope in his grounds at Twickenham, where it flourished many years; but, falling into decay, it was lately cut down.

ERE Pope resign'd his tuneful breath,
And made the turf his pillow,
The minstrel hung his harp in death
Upon the drooping willow;

By harvest moonlight there he spied
The fairy bands advancing;
Bright Ariel's troops, on Thames's side,
Around the willow dancing;
Gay sylphs among the foliage play'd,
And glow-worms glitter'd in the shade.

One morn, while Time thus mark'd the tree
In beauty green and glorious,
"The hand," he cried, "that planted thee
O'er mine was oft victorious;

Be vengeance now my calm employ,-
One work of Pope's I will destroy."

He spake, and struck a silent blow

With that dread arm whose motion
Lays cedars, thrones, and temples low,
And wields o'er land and ocean
The unremitting axe of doom,
That fells the forest of the tomb.
Deep to the willow's root it went,
And cleft the core asunder,
Like sudden secret lightning, sent
Without recording thunder:
--From that sad moment, slow away
Began the willow to decay.

In vain did spring those bowers restore,
Where loves and graces revell'd,
Autumn's wild gales the branches tore,
The thin gray leaves dishevell❜d,
And every wasting winter found
The willow nearer to the ground.

Hoary, and weak, and bent with age,
At length the axe assail'd it:
It bow'd before the woodman's rage;
-The swans of Thames bewail'd it,
With softer tones, with sweeter breath,
Than ever charm'd the ear of death.

O Pope! hadst thou, whose lyre so long
The wondering world enchanted,

Amidst thy paradise of song

This weeping willow planted;

Among thy loftiest laurels seen,
In deathless verse for ever green-

Thy chosen tree had stood sublime,
The storm of ages braving,
Triumphant o'er the wrecks of time
Its verdant banner waving,
While regal pyramids decay'd,
And empires perish'd in its shade.
An humbler lot, O tree! was thine,
--Gone down in all thy glory;
The sweet, the mournful task be mine,
To sing thy simple story;

Though verse like mine in vain would raise The fame of thy departed days.

Yet, fallen willow! if to me

Such power of song were given,

My lips should breathe a soul through thee,
And call down fire from heaven,
To kindle in this hallow'd urn

A flame that would for ever burn.

THE SWISS COWHERD'S SONG IN A

FOREIGN LAND.

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

O, WHEN shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,

Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore ?
O, when shall I dance on the daisy-white mead,
In the shade of an elm, to the sound of the reed?
When shall I return to that lowly retreat,
Where all my fond objects of tenderness meet,-
The lambs and the heifers that follow my call,
My father, my mother,

My sister, my brother,

And dear Isabella, the joy of them all?
O, when shall I visit the land of my birth?
-'Tis the loveliest land on the face of the earth.

THE DIAL.

THIS shadow on the dial's face,

That steals from day to day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Moments, and months, and years away; This shadow, which, in every clime, Since light and motion first began, Hath held its course sublimeWhat is it?-Mortal man! It is the scythe of time: -A shadow only to the eye;

Yet, in its calm career,

It levels all beneath the sky;

And still, through each succeeding year
Right onward, with resistless power,
Its stroke shall darken every hour,

Till nature's race be run,

And time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun

Nor only o'er the dial's face,

This silent phantom, day by day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Steals moments, months, and years away; From hoary rock and aged tree,

From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls, From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea, From every blade of grass it falls. For still, where'er a shadow sweeps, The scythe of Time destroys. And man at every footstep weeps

O'er evanescent joys;

Like flow'rets glittering with the dews of morn
Fair for a moment, then for ever shorn.
-Ah! soon, beneath th' inevitable blow,
I, too, shall lie in dust and darkness low.

Then Time, the conqueror, will suspend

His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb, Whose moving shadow shall portend Each frail beholder's doom.

O'er the wide earth's illumined space, Though time's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face

Points from the churchyard stone.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

A MOTHER'S love,-how sweet the name! What is a mother's love?

-A noble, pure, and tender flame,

Enkindled from above,

To bless a heart of earthly mould;
The warmest love that can grow cold;
This is a mother's love.

To bring a helpless babe to light,
Then, while it lies forlorn,
To gaze upon that dearest sight,
And feel herself new-born,

In its existence lose her own,

And live and breathe in it alone; This is a mother's love.

Its weakness in her arms to bear;

To cherish on her breast,

Feed it from love's own fountain there,

And lull it there to rest;

Then while it slumbers watch its breath,
As if to guard from instant death;
This is a mother's love.

To mark its growth from day to day,
Its opening charms admire,
Catch from its eye the earliest ray
Of intellectual fire;

To smile and listen while it talks,
And lend a finger when it walks;
This is a mother's love.

And can a mother's love grow cold?

Can she forget her boy?
His pleading innocence behold,
Nor weep for grief-for joy!
A mother may forget her child,
While wolves devour it on the wild;
-Is this a mother's love?

Ten thousand voices answer, "No!"
Ye clasp your babes and kiss;
Your bosoms yearn, your eyes o'erflow;
Yet, ah! remember this;

The infant, rear'd alone for earth,
May live, may die,-to curse his birth;
-Is this a mother's love?

A parent's heart may prove a snare;
The child she loves so well,
Her hand may lead, with gentlest care,
Down the smooth road to hell;
Nourish its frame,-destroy its mind:
Thus do the blind mislead the blind,

Even with a mother's love.

Blest infant! whom his mother taught Early to seek the Lord,

And pour'd upon his dawning thought

The day-spring of the word; This was the lesson to her son, -Time is eternity begun :

Behold that mother's love.*

Blest mother! who, in wisdom's path, By her own parent trod,

Thus taught her son to flee the wrath, And know the fear of God:

Ah! youth, like him enjoy your prime, Begin eternity in time,

Taught by that mother's love.

That mother's love!-how sweet the name!
What was that mother's love?

-The noblest, purest, tenderest flame,
That kindles from above

Within a heart of earthly mould,

As much of heaven as heart can hold,
Nor through eternity grows cold:
This was that mother's love.

THE GLOW-WORM.

The male of this insect is said to be a fly, which the female caterpillar attracts in the night by the lustre of her train.

WHEN evening closes nature's eye,

The glow-worm lights her little spark,

To captivate her favourite fly,

And tempt the rover through the dark.

Conducted by a sweeter star

Than all that deck the fields above,

He fondly hastens from afar,

To soothe her solitude with love.

Thus in this wilderness of tears,
Amidst the world's perplexing gloom,
The transient torch of Hymen cheers
The pilgrim journeying to the tomb.
Unhappy he whose hopeless eye

Turns to the light of love in vain ;
Whose cynosure is in the sky,
He on the dark and lonely main.

* 2 Tim. i. 5, and iii. 14, 15.

THE OAK.

IMITATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF METASTASIO.

THE tall oak, towering to the skies,
The fury of the wind defies,
From age to age, in virtue strong,
Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.

O'erwhelm'd at length upon the plain,
It puts forth wings, and sweeps the main;
The selfsame foe undaunted braves,
And fights the winds upon the waves.

THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS.
WELL, thou art gone, and I am left:
But O! how cold and dark to me
This world, of every charm bereft,
Where all was beautiful with thee!

Though I have seen thy form depart
For ever from my widow'd eye,
I hold thee in mine inmost heart;
There, there at least thou canst not die.
Farewell on earth: Heaven claim'd its own;
Yet, when from me thy presence went,
I was exchanged for God alone:
Let dust and ashes learn content.

Ha! those small voices, silver sweet!
Fresh from the fields my babes appear;
They fill my arms, they clasp my feet:
-"O! could your father see us here!"

THE BIBLE.

WHAT is the world?-A wildering maze,
Where sin hath track'd ten thousand ways,
Her victims to ensnare;

All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.

Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
Bearing their baubles, or their loads,

Down to eternal night:

-One humble path, that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.

Is there a guide to show that path?
The Bible-He alone, who hath

The Bible, need not stray:
Yet he who hath, and will not give
That heavenly guide to all that live,
Himself shall lose the way.

THE DAISY IN INDIA.

Supposed to be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learn ed and illustrious Baptist missionary at Serampore, to the first plant of this kind, which sprang up unex pectedly in his garden, out of some English earth, in which other seeds had been conveyed to him from this country. With great care and nursing, the doctor has been enabled to perpetuate the daisy in India, as an annual only, raised by seed preserved from season to

season.

HUMAN LIFE.
Job xiv.

How few and evil are thy days,
Man, of a woman born!

Trouble and peril haunt thy ways:
-Forth like a flower at morn,
The tender infant springs to light,
Youth blossoms with the breeze,
Age, withering age, is cropt ere night;
-Man like a shadow flees.

And dost thou look on such a one? Will God to judgment call

A worm, for what a worm hath done
Against the Lord of all?

As fail the waters from the deep,
As summer brooks run dry,

Man lieth down in dreamless sleep;
-Our life is vanity.

Man lieth down, no more to wake,
Till yonder arching sphere
Shall with a roll of thunder break,
And nature disappear.

-O! hide me, till thy wrath be past,
Thou, who canst kill or save;

Hide me, where hope may anchor fast In my Redeemer's grave.

THRICE Welcome, little English flower!
My mother country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread:
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies,

Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;
But, when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabash'd but modest eyes,
Follow his motion to the west,
Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.

Thrice welcome, little English flower,
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year;
Thou, only thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended and unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Of early scenes beloved by me,
While happy in my father's bower,
Thou shalt the blithe memorial be;