XXXVIII. THE DYING NEGRO. TUNE: The Cherokee Death Song. 1 O'ER my toil-wither'd limbs sickly languors are shed, And the dark mists of death on my eyelids are spread; Before my last sufferings how gladly I bend! For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a friend. 2 Against the hot breezes hard struggles my breast, Slow, slow beats my heart, and I hasten to rest; No more shall sharp anguish my faint bosom rend, For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a friend. 3 No more shall I sink in the deep-scorching air, No more shall keen hunger my weak body tear, No more on my limbs shall swift lashes descend, For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a friend. 4 Ye ruffians! who tore me from all I held dear, Who mock'd at my wailings and smil'd at my tear, Now, now shall I 'scape, every suffering shall end, For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a friend. XXXIX. THE NEGRO'S EXULTATION. 1807. A SEQUEL TO COWPER'S NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. 1 No longer the Negroes complain, On them hath light graciously beam'd, 2 They told us before of their God, But now we are sure it is true, Their actions confirm our belief, 3 The fetters they strike from our hands With a love that is willing and kind; Oh! if Christ has commanded you this, 4 And thus, for the evils you've wrought, Yes, there must be a life after this, We acknowledge the Heavenly Powers, We shall smile at past tears in that bliss ; Your Saviour and God shall be ours. J. P. XL. MUSIC. A GLEE COMPOSED IN 1779 BY S. WEBBE. MUSIC's the language of the Blest above; The joys that happy souls possess, Nor in just raptures tell the wond'rous power of love. 'Tis Nature's dialect, design'd To charm and captivate the mind. Music's an universal good, That doth dispense its joys around, In all the elegance of sound, To be by men admir'd, by Angels understood. 181 LETTER IV. ON CONVIVIAL SONGS. Sept. 10, 1810. FRO SIR, ROM your observations on Moral Songs and the joint Collection of Moral and Miscellaneous which you have given, we proceed to the Convivial. You say in your Essay on Songwriting (p. xxxi, &c.) "as Milton, in his COMUS, has not scrupled to let the advocate of pleasure be heard, and that, in very persuasive language, trusting to the counteraction of more solid arguments in favour of sobriety, it might perhaps be excess of rigour to banish from song-poetry every lively effusion of this kind. The pleasures which this lax morality of poets has been chiefly employed to excuse and · varnish, have at all times been those of love and wine, allowable, indeed, in a certain degree to exhilarate the anxious lives of mortals, but always prone to pass the bounds of moderation. Music has lent a willing aid to these incitements; and the classes of amorous and drinking Songs R |