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SONNET

ADDRESSED TO

HENRY COWPER, Esa.

On his emphatical and interesting delivery of the Defence of WARREN HASTINGS, Esq. in the House of Lords.

COWPER, whose silver voice, task'd sometimes hard;
Legends prolix delivers in the ears
(Attentive when thou read'st) of England's Peers,
Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward.

Thou wast not heard with drowsy difregard,
Expending late on all that length of plea
Thy gen'rous pow'rs, but filence honour'd thee
Mute as e'er gaz'd on Orator or Bard.
Thou art not voice alone, but haft befide
Both heart and head; and could'st with music sweet
Of attic phrafe and fenatorial tone,

Like thy renown'd Forefathers, far and wide
Thy fame diffuse, prais'd not for utt'rance meet
Of others' speech, but magic of thy own.

THE MORNING DREAM.

Twas in the glad season of spring,
Afleep at the dawn of the day,
I dream'd what I cannot but fing,
So pleasant it feem'd as I lay.
I dream'd that on ocean afloat,
Far hence to the westward I fail'd,
While the billows high-lifted the boat,
And the fresh-blowing breeze never fail'd.

In the steerage a woman I saw,

Such at least was the form that she wore,

Whose beauty impress'd me with awe,
Ne'er taught me by woman before.
She fat, and a fhield at her fide
Shed light like a fun on the waves,
And smiling divinely, she cry'd-
I go to make Freemen of Slaves.-

Then raising her voice to a strain
The sweetest that ear ever heard,

She sung of the flave's broken chain
Wherever her glory appear'd.
Some clouds which had over us hung
Fled, chas'd by her melody clear,
And methought while the Liberty sung,
'Twas Liberty only to hear.

Thus swiftly dividing the flood

To a flave-cultur'd ifland we came, Where a Demon, her enemy, ftoodOppreffion his terrible name. In his hand, as the fign of his sway, A fcourge hung with lashes he bore, And flood looking out for his prey From Africa's forrowful shore.

But foon as approaching the land

That goddess-like woman he view'd, The scourge he let fall from his hand, With blood of his subjects imbrued. I faw him both ficken and die, And the moment the monfter expir'd Heard shouts that ascended the sky

From thousands with rapture inspir'd. Awaking, how could I but muse

At what fuch a dream should betide? But foon my ear caught the glad news Which serv'd my weak thought for a guideThat Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves For the hatred the ever has shown To the black-fceptred rulers of flaves, Resolves to have none of her own.

VERSES

PRINTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE

YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY

OF THE TOWN OF NORTHAMPTON,
Dec. 21, 1787.

Pallida Mors æquo pulfat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home-the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine, or did plague prevail,
That so much death appears?

No; these were vigorous as their fires,
Nor plague nor famine came;

This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waves his claim.

Like crowded foreft-trees we stand,
And fome are mark'd to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And foon shall smite us all.

4

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless have I seen;
I pass'd-and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

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