SONNET VI.

HIGH in the air exposed the slave is hung,
To all the birds of heaven, their living food!
He groans not, though awaked by that fierce sun
New torturers live to drink their parent blood;
He groans not, though the gorging vulture tear
The quivering fibre. Hither look, O ye
Who tore this man from peace and liberty!
Look hither, ye who weigh with politic care
The gain against the guilt! Beyond the grave
There is another world!.. bear ye in mind,
Ere your decree proclaims to all mankind
The gain is worth the guilt, that there the Slave,
Before the Eternal, " thunder-tongued shall plead
Against the deep damnation of your deed."

Bristol, 1794.

TO THE GENIUS OF AFRICA.

O THOU, who from the mountain's height
Rollest thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Nile's majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest Carthage in her ancient pride,
The mistress of the Main ;

Hear, Genius, hear thy children's cry!
Not always should'st thou love to brood

Stern o'er the desert solitude

Where seas of sand heave their hot surges high;

Nor, Genius, should the midnight song

Detain thee in some milder mood

The palmy plains among,

Where Gambia to the torches' light
Flows radiant through the awaken'd night.

Ah, linger not to hear the song!
Genius, avenge thy children's wrong!
The demon Avarice on your shore
Brings all the horrors of his train,
And hark! where from the field of gore
Howls the hyena o'er the slain!

Lo! where the flaming village fires the skies

Avenging Power, awake! arise!

Arise, thy children's wrongs redress! Heed the mother's wretchedness,

When in the hot infectious air

O'er her sick babe she bows opprest, .
Hear her when the Traders tear
The suffering infant from her breast!
Sunk in the ocean he shall rest!
Hear thou the wretched mother's cries,
Avenging Power! awake! arise!

By the rank infected air

That taints those cabins of despair;
By the scourges blacken'd o'er,
And stiff and hard with human gore;
By every groan of deep distress,
By every curse of wretchedness ;

The vices and the crimes that flow
From the hopelessness of woe;

By every drop of blood bespilt,

By Afric's wrongs and Europe's guilt,

Awake! arise! avenge!

And thou hast heard! and o'er their blood-fed plains

Sent thine avenging hurricanes

And bade thy storms with whirlwind roar

Dash their proud navies on the shore;

And where their armies claim'd the fight

Wither'd the warrior's might;

And o'er the unholy host with baneful breath, There, Genius, thou hast breathed the gales of Death.

Bristol, 1795.

THE SAILOR,

WHO HAD SERVED IN THE SLAVE TRADE.

In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of Bristol discovered a sailor in the neighbourhood of that City, groaning and praying in a cow-house. The circumstance which occasioned his agony of mind is detailed in the annexed ballad, without the slightest addition or alteration. By presenting it as a Poem the story is made more public, and such stories ought to be made as public as possible.

It was a Christian minister,

Who, in the month of flowers,
Walk'd forth at eve amid the fields
Near Bristol's ancient towers;

When from a lonely out-house breathed,

He heard a voice of woe,

And groans which less might seem from pain,
Than wretchedness to flow;

Heart-rending groans they were, with words
Of bitterest despair,

Yet with the holy name of Christ

Pronounced in broken prayer

The Christian minister went in,

A Sailor there he sees,

Whose hands were lifted up to Heaven, And he was on his knees.

Nor did the Sailor so intent
His entering footsteps heed,

But now

"Our Father" said, and now

His half-forgotten creed;

And often on our Saviour call'd

With many a bitter groan,
But in such anguish as may spring
From deepest guilt alone.

The miserable man was ask'd
Why he was kneeling there,

And what had been the crime that caused
The anguish of his prayer?

"I have done a cursed thing!" he cried, "It haunts me night and day, And I have sought this lonely place Here undisturb'd to pray.

Aboard I have no place for prayer,

So I came here alone,

That I might freely kneel and pray,
And call on Christ, and groan.