When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame, 475

That embryo spirit, yet without a name,

That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands

Shall burst the Libyan's adamantine bands?

Who, sternly marking on his native soil,

The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,

480

Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see

Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!

Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day That breaks your bitter cup, is far away;

Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,

And holy men give scripture for the deed;
Scourg'd and debas'd, no Briton stoops to save

A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave !—

485

'Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand

Had heav'd the floods, and fix'd the trembling land, 490

When life sprung startling at thy plastic call,

Endless her forms, and man the lord of all!

Say, was that lordly form inspir'd by thee,

To wear eternal chains and bow the knee?

Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,

495

Yok'd with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil;

Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold?

No'-Nature stamp'd us in a heav'nly mould!

She bade no wretch his thankless labour urge,

Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge! 500 No homeless Libyan, on the stormy deep,

To call upon his country's name, and weep!

Lo! once in triumph, on his boundless plain,
The quiver'd chief of Congo lov'd to reign;
With fires proportion'd to his native sky,

Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scour'd with wild feet his sun-illumin'd zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own;

Or led the combat, bold without a plan,

An artless savage, but a fearless man!

505

510

The plunderer came-alas! no glory smiles

For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles;

For ever fallen! no son of Nature now,

With freedom charter'd on his manly brow!

Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,

And, when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,

515

Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more

To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore !

The shrill horn blew; at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell!
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resign'd
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!—

Poor fetter'd man! I hear thee whispering low

Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Woe!

520

Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbour there

525

A wish but death-a passion but despair?

The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires,

Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires!

So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh!

So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!

530

But not to Libya's barren climes alone,

To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,

Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!-

Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!

How long your tribes have trembled, and obey'd!
How long was Timur's iron sceptre sway'd!'
Whose marshall'd hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Rag'd o'er your plunder'd shrines and altars bare,
With blazing torch and gory scymitar,-
Stun'd with the cries of death each gentle gale,
And bath'd in blood the verdure of the vale!
Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame,
When Brama's children perish'd for his name;

535

540

545