His lips persuasive charm the' uncultured youth,
Teach wisdom's lore, and point the path of truth!
See! chasten'd love in softer glances flows;
See! with new fires parental duty glows.
Thou smiling Eden of the southern wave,
Could not, alas! thy grateful wishes save
That angel goodness which had bless'd thy plain?
Ah! vain thy gratitude, thy wishes vain!
On a far distant and remorseless shore,
Where human fiends their dire libations pour;
Where treachery, hovering o'er the blasted heath,
Poises with ghastly smile the darts of death;
Pierced by their venom'd points your favourite
bleeds,
And on his limbs the lust of hunger feeds!
Thus when of old the muse-born Orpheus bore
Fair arts and virtues to the Thracian shore;
Struck with sweet energy the warbling wire,
And pour'd persuasion from the immortal lyre;
As soften'd brutes, the waving woods among,
Bow'd their weak heads and listen'd to the song;
Near and more near, with rage and tumult loud,
Round the bold bard the' inebriate maniacs crowd-
Red on the' ungrateful soil his life-blood swims,
And fiends and furies tear his quivering limbs.
Gay Eden of the south, thy tribute pay,
And raise, in pomp of woe, thy Cook's Morait!
• Captain Cook observes, in his second voyage, that the women of Otaheite were grown more modest, and that the barbarous practice of destroying their children was lessened.
↑ The morai is a kind of funeral altar which the people of Otaheite raise to the memory of their deceased friends. They bring to it a daily tribute of fruits, flowers, and the plumage of birds. The chief mourner wanders around it in a state of apparent distraction, shrieking furiously, and striking at intervals a shark's tooth into her head. All people fly her, as she aims at wounding not only herself but others.
Bid mild Omiah bring his choices stores,
The juicy fruits and the luxuriant flowers;
Bring the bright plumes that drink the torrid ray,
And strew the lavish spoil on Cook's morai !
Come, Oberea, hapless fair one! come,
With piercing shrieks bewail thy hero's doom!-
She comes!-she gazes round with dire survey!—
Oh! fly the mourner on her frantic way.
See! see! the pointed ivory wounds that head
Where late the Loves impurpled roses spread;
Now stain'd with gore, her raven tresses flow
In ruthless negligence of maddening woe;
Loud she laments!-and long the nymph shall
stray
With wild unequal steps round Cook's morai!
But ah! aloft on Albion's rocky steep,
That frowns incumbent o'er the boiling deep,
Solicitous and sad, a softer form
Eyes the lone flood and deprecates the storm.—
Ill fated matron!-far, alas! in vain
Thy eager glances wander o'er the main!-
'Tis the vex'd billows that insurgent rave,
Their white foam silvers yonder distant wave,
'Tis not his sails!--thy husband comes no more!
His bones now whiten an accursed shore!-
Retire,-for hark! the seagull shrieking soars,
The lurid atmosphere portentous lours;
Night's sullen spirit groans in every gale,
And o'er the waters draws the darkling veil,
Sighs in thy hair, and chills thy throbbing breast,
Go, wretched mourner!—weep thy griefs to rest;
Yet, though through life is lost each fond delight,
Though set thy earthly sun in dreary night,
Oh! raise thy thoughts to yonder starry plain,
And own thy sorrow selfish, weak, and vain;
Since, while Britannia, to his virtues just, [bust;
Twines the bright wreath and rears the' immortal
While on each wind of heaven his fame shall rise
In endless incense to the smiling skies;
The' attendant power, that bade his sails expand
And waft her blessings to each barren land,
Now raptured bears him to the' immortal plains,
Where Mercy hails him with congenial strains;
Where soars, on Joy's white plume, his spirit free,
And angels choir him, while he waits for thee.
SPIRIT of Death! whose outstretch'd pennons dread
Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread,
Who darkly speedest on thy destined way,
Mid shrieks and cries and sounds of dire dismay;
Spirit! behold thy victory-assume
A form more terrible, an ampler plume;
For he, who wander'd o'er the world alone,
Listening to Misery's universal moan;
He who, sustain'd by Virtue's arm sublime,
Tended the sick and poor from clime to clime,
Low in the dust is laid-thy noblest spoil!
And Mercy ceases from her awful toil!
'Twas where the pestilence at thy command Arose to desolate the sickening land,
When many a mingled cry and dying prayer
Resounded to the listening midnight air,
When deep dismay heard not the frequent knell,
And the wan carcass fester'd as it fell;
"Twas there, with holy virtue's awful mien,
Amid the sad sights of that fearful scene,
Calm he was found: the dews of death he dried,
He spoke of comfort to the poor that cried;
He watch'd the fading eye, the flagging breath,
Ere yet the languid sense was lost in death;
And, with that look protecting angels wear,
Hung o'er the dismal couch of pale despair!
Friend of mankind! thy righteous task is o'er;
The heart that throbb'd with pity beats no more.
Around the limits of this rolling sphere,
Whene'er the just and good thy tale shall hear,
A tear shall fall; alone, amidst the gloom
Of the still dungeon, his long sorrow's tomb,
The captive, mourning o'er his chain, shall bend
To think the cold earth hides his only friend!-
He who with labour draws his wasting breath
On the forsaken silent bed of death,
Remembering thy last look and anxious eye,
Shall gaze around, unvisited, and die.
[shed, Friend of mankind, farewell! these tears we
So nature dictates, o'er thy earthly bed;
Yet we forget not it was his high will,
Who saw thee virtue's arduous task fulfil,
Thy spirit from its toil at last should rest;
So wills thy God, and what He wills is best!
Thou hast encounter'd dark disease's train,
Thou hast conversed with poverty and pain,
Thou hast beheld the dreariest forms of woe
That through this mournful vale unfriended go;
And pale with sympathy hast paused to hear
The saddest plaints e'er told to human ear.
Go then, the task fulfill'd, the trial o'er,
Where sickness, want, and pain are known no more!
How awful did thy lonely track appear, Enlightening misery's benighted sphere!
As when an angel all serene goes forth To still the raging tempest of the north, The' embattled clouds that hid the struggling day Slow from his face retire in dark array; On the black waves, like promontories hung, A light, as of the orient morn, is flung, Till blue and level heaves the silent brine, And the new lighted rocks at distance shine: E'en so didst thou go forth with cheering eyeBefore thy looks the shades of misery fly; So didst thou hush the tempest, stilling wide Of human woe the loud lamenting tide.
Nor shall the spirit of those deeds expire,
As fades the feeble spark of vital fire,
But beam abroad, and cheer with lustre mild
Humanity's remotest prospects wild,
Till this frail orb shall from its sphere be hurl'd,
Till final ruin hush the murmuring world,
And all its sorrows, at the awful blast
Of the' archangel's trump, be but as shadows past!
Relentless Time, that steals with silent tread,
Shall tear away the trophies of the dead;
Fame, on the pyramid's aspiring top,
With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop;
The feeble characters of Glory's hand
Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand;
But not with these expire the sacred flame
Of virtue, or the good man's awful name.
Howard! it matters not that far away
From Albion's peaceful shore thy bones decay.
Him it might please, by whose sustaining hand
Thy steps were led through many a distant land,
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