MILTON. SLAVERY. O EXECRABLE SON, so to aspire THE HORRORS OF SLAVERY DEPLORED. COWPER. My ear is pained, There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's We have no slaves at home-then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble! and bespeaks a nation proud Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. THE NEGRO'S DEPARTURE FROM AFRICA. SHENSTONE. ON the wild heath in mournful guise he stood "Why am I ravish'd from my native strand? What savage race protects this impious gain? Shall foreign plagues infest this teeming land, And more than sea-born monsters plough the main? "Here the dire locusts' horrid swarms pre vail; Here the blue asps with livid poison swell; Here the dry dipsa writhes his sinuous mail; Can we not here secure from envy dwell? When the grim lion urg'd his cruel chase, When the stern panther sought his midnight prey, What fate preserved me for this Christian race? O race more polish'd, more severe, than they. "Yet shores there are, bless'd shores for us remain, 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 which duty urges, Agents of his will to use. Hark! he answers-Wild tornadoes, Strewing yonder sea with wrecks; Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, Are the voice with which he speaks. And favour'd isles, with golden fruitage He, foreseeing what vexations |