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The Ships at distance and the Boats at hand:
ind now they walk upon the Sea-side Sand,
ounting the number, and what kind they be,
hips softly sinking in the sleepy Sea:
Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold
The glitt'ring Waters on the Shingles roll'd:
The timid Girls, half dreading their design,
Dip the small Foot in the retarded Brine,
And search for crimson Weeds, which spreading flow
Or lie like Pictures on the Sand below;

With all those bright red Pebbles, that the Sun
Through the small Waves so softly shines upon
And those live lucid Jellies which the eye
Delights to trace as they swim glitt'ring by:
Pearl-shells and Rubied Star-fish they admire,
And will arrange above the Parlour-fire,—
Tokens of Bliss!-

DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA AND THE negro.

[From Montgomery's West Indies.]

WHERE the stupendous Mountains of the Moon
Cast their broad shadows o'er the realms of noon;
From rude Caffraria, where the giraffes browse,
With stately heads among the forest boughs,
To Atlas, where Numidian lions glow
With torrid fire beneath eternal snow;
From Nubian hills, that hail the dawning day,
To Guinea's coast, where evening fades away,
Regions immense, unsearchable, unknown,
Bask in the splendor of the solar zone;
A world of wonders,-where Creation seems
No more the works of Nature but her dreams;
Great, wild, and beautiful, beyond control,
She reigns in all the freedom of her soul;

Where none can check her bounty when she showers
O'er the gay wilderness her fruits and flowers;
None brave her fury, when, with whirlwind breath,
And earthquake step, she walks abroad with death;
O'er boundless plains she holds her fiery flight,
In terrible magnificence of light;

At blazing noon pursues the ev❜ning breeze,
Through the dun gloom of realm-o'ershadowing trees;
Her thirst at Nile's mysterious fountain quells,
Or bathes in secrecy where Niger swells

An inland ocean, on whose jasper rocks

With shells and sea-flower-wreaths she binds her locks:
She sleeps on isles of velvet verdure, placed
Midst sandy gulfs and shoals for ever waste;
She guides her countless flock to cherish'd rills,
And feeds her cattle on a thousand hills;

Her steps the wild-bees welcome through the vale,
From every blossom that embalms the gale;
The slow unwieldy river-horse she leads

Through the deep waters, o'er the pasturing meads;
And climbs the mountains that invade the sky,
To soothe the eagle's nestlings when they cry.
At sun-set, when voracious monsters burst
From dreams of blood, awake'd by mad'dning thirst;
When the lorn caves, in which they shrunk from light,
Ring with wild echoes through the hideous night;
When darkness seems alive, and all the air
Is one tremendous uproar of despair,
Horror and agony;-on her they call;
She hears their clamour, she provides for all,
Leads the light leopard on his eager way,
And goads the gaunt hyæna to his prey.

In these romantic regions man grows wild;
Here dwells the Negro, Nature's outcast child.
Scorn'd by his brethren; but his mother's eye,
That gazes on him from her warmest sky,
Sees in his flexile limbs untutor'd grace,
Power on his forehead, beauty in his face;
Sees in his breast, where lawless passions rove,
The heart of friendship, and the home of love;
Sees in his mind, where desolation reigns,
Fierce as his clime, uncultured as his plains,
A soil where virtue's fairest flowers might shoot,
And trees of science bend with glorious fruit;
Sees in his soul, involved with thickest night,
An emanation of eternal light,

Ordain'd 'midst sinking worlds, his dust to fire,
And shine for ever when the stars expire.
Is he not Man, though knowledge never shed
Her quick'ning beams on his neglected head?
Is he not Man, though sweet religion's voice
Ne'er bade the mourner in his God rejoice?
Is he not Man, by sin and suffering tried?
Is he not Man for whom the Saviour died?
Belie the Negro's powers in headlong will,
Christian, thy brother thou shalt prove him still;
Belie his virtues; since his wrongs began,

His follies and his crimes have stampt him Man.

THE NEGRO's HOME AND COUNTRY.

[From the same.]

AND is the Negro outlaw'd from his birth?
Is he alone a stranger on the earth?

Is there no shed whose peeping roof appears
So lovely that it fills his eyes with tears?

No land, whose name in exile heard, will dart
Ice through his veins and lightning through his heart?
Ah! yes; beneath the beams of brighter skies,
His home amidst his father's country lies;
There with the partner of his soul he shares
Love-mingled pleasures, love-divided cares;
There, as with nature's warmest filial fire,
He soothes his blind, and feeds his helpless sire;
His children sporting round his hut behold
How they shall cherish him when he is old,
Train'd by example from their tenderest youth
To deeds of charity and words of truth.
-Is he not bless'd? Behold at closing day,
The negro village swarms abroad to play;

He treads the dance through half its rapturous rounds,
To the wild music of barbarian sounds!

Or stretch'd at ease, where broad palmettos shower
Delicious coolness on his shadowy bower,
He feasts on tales of witchcraft, that gave birth
To breathless wonder, or ecstatic mirth;
Yet most delighted, when, in rudest rhymes,
The minstrel wakes the song of elder times,

When men were heroes, slaves to Beauty's charms,
And all the joys of life were love and arms.
-Is not the Negro blest? His gen'rous soil
With harvest-plenty crowns his simple toil;
More than his wants his flocks and field afford;
He loves to greet the stranger at his board :
"The winds were roaring, and the White Man fled;
"The rains of night descended on his head;
"The poor White Man sat down beneath our tree,
"Weary and faint and far from home was he;
"For him no mother fills with milk the bowl,
"No wife prepares the bread to cheer his soul:
-Pity the poor White Man, who sought our tree,
"No wife, no mother, and no home has he."
Thus sung the Negro's daughters; once again,
O, that the poor White Man might hear that strain!
-Whether the victim of the treach'rous Moor;
Or from the Negro's hospital door

66

Spurn'd as a spy, from Europe's hateful clime,
And left to perish for thy country's crime;
Or destined still, when all thy wanderings cease,
On Albion's lovely lap to rest in peace;
Pilgrim! in heaven or earth, where'er thou be,
Angels of mercy guide and comfort thee!

THE GUINEA CAPTAIN.

[From the same.]

LIVES there a savage ruder than the slave?
-Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below,
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,
A Christian broker in the trade of blood;
Boist'rous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
He buys, he sells, he steals, he kills, for gold.
At noon, when sky and ocean, calm and clear,
Bend round his bark, one blue unbroken sphere;
When dancing dolphins sparkle through the brine,
And sun-beam circles o'er the waters shine;
He sees no beauty in the heaven serene,
No soul-enchanting sweetness in the scene,
But darkly scowling at the glorious day,
Curses the winds that loiter on their way.
When swoln with hurricanes the billows rise,
To meet the lightning midway from the skies;
When from the unburthen'd hold his shrieking slaves
Are cast, at midnight, to the hungry waves;
Not for his victims strangled in the deeps,
Not for his crimes the harden'd pirate weeps,
But grimly smiling when the storm is o'er,
Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more.

THE CREOLE PLANTER.

[From the same.]

LIVES there a reptile baser than the slave?
-Loathsome as death corrupted as the gravé,
See the dull Creole; at his pompous board,
Attendant vassals cringe around their lord;
Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close,
Voluptuous minions fan him to repose;
Prone on the noonday couch he lolls in vain,
Delirious slumbers rack his maudlin brain;

He starts in horror from bewild'ring dreams,
His bloodshot eye with fire and frenzy gleams;
He stalks abroad; through all his wonted rounds,
The negro trembles, and the lash resounds,
And cries of anguish shrilling through the air
To distant fields his dread approach declare.
Mark, as he passes, every head declined;
Then slowly raised,-to curse him from behind.
This is the veriest wretch on nature's face;
Own'd by no country, spurn'd by every race;
The tether'd tyrant of one narrow span,
The bloated vampire of a living man;
His frame-a fungus form, of dunghill birth,
That taints the air, and rots above the earth;
His soul;-has he a soul, whose sensual breast
Of selfish passions is a serpent's nest?
Who follows headlong, ignorant, and blind,
The vague brute-instinct of an idiot mind;

Whose heart midst scenes of suffering senseless grown,
E'en in his mother's lap was chill'd to stone;
Whose torpid pulse no social feelings move;
A stranger to the tenderness of love,
His motley harem charms his gloating eye,
Where ebon, brown, and olive beauties vie ;
His children, sprung alike from sloth and vice,
Are born his slaves, and loved at market price :
Has he a soul? -With his departing breath,
A form shall hail him at the gates of death,

The spectre Conscience,-shrieking through the gloom, "Man we shall meet again beyond the tomb."

CHRISTIAN NEGROES.

[From the same.]

AND thou, poor Negro ! scorn'd of all mankind;
Thou dumb and impotent, and deaf and blind;
Thou dead in spirit! toil-degraded slave,
Crush'd by the curse on Adam to the grave!
The messengers of peace o'er land and sea,
That sought the sons of sorrow, stoop'd to thee.
-The captive raised his slow and sullen

eye;

He knew no friend, nor deem'd a friend was nigh,

Till the sweet tones of pity touch'd his ears,
And mercy bathed his bosom with her tears;

Strange were those tones, to him those tears were strange, He wept and wonder'd at the mighty change,

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