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MILTON.

SLAVERY.

O EXECRABLE SON, so to aspire
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurpt, from God not given,
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation;-but man over men
He made not Lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.

THE HORRORS OF SLAVERY DEPLORED.

COWPER.

My ear is pained,
My soul is sick, with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is
filled.

There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax,
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not coloured like his own; and having power
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his
sweat

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
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on
him.

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
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire: that where Britain's
power

Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

THE NEGRO'S DEPARTURE FROM

AFRICA.

SHENSTONE.

ON the wild heath in mournful guise he stood
Ere the shrill boatswain gave the hated sign;
He dropt a tear unseen into the flood,
He stole one secret moment to repine.-

"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

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