Miscellaneous Poems | Page 6

the world to brave,
And be the slave of vice and man.
She knew my name--we met in pain;
Our parting pangs can I express?

She sail'd a convict o'er the main,
And left an heir to her distress.
This is that heir to shame and pain,
For whom I only could descry

A world of trouble and disdain:
Yet, could I bear to see her die,
Or
stretch her feeble hands in vain,
And, weeping, beg of me supply?
No! though the fate thy mother knew
Was shameful! shameful
though thy race
Have wander'd all a lawless crew,
Outcasts
despised in every place;
Yet as the dark and muddy tide,
When far from its polluted source,

Becomes more pure and purified,
Flows in a clear and happy course;
In thee, dear infant! so may end
Our shame, in thee our sorrows cease,

And thy pure course will then extend,
In floods of joy, o'er vales of
peace.
Oh! by the GOD who loves to spare,
Deny me not the boon I crave;

Let this loved child your mercy share,
And let me find a peaceful
grave:
Make her yet spotless soul your care,
And let my sins their
portion have;
Her for a better fate prepare,
And punish whom 'twere
sin to save!
MAGISTRATE.
Recall the word, renounce the thought,
Command thy heart and bend
thy knee;
There is to all a pardon brought,
A ransom rich, assured

and free;
'Tis full when found, 'tis found if sought,
Oh! seek it, till
'tis seal'd to thee.
VAGRANT.
But how my pardon shall I know?
MAGISTRATE.
By feeling dread that 'tis not sent,
By tears for sin that freely flow,

By grief, that all thy tears are spent,
By thoughts on that great debt
we owe,
With all the mercy God has lent,
By suffering what thou
canst not show,
Yet showing how thine heart is rent,
Till thou canst
feel thy bosom glow,
And say, "MY SAVIOUR, I REPENT!"
1807
"WOMAN!"
To a Woman I never addressed myself in the language of decency and
friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I was
hungry or thirsty, wet or sick, they did not hesitate, like Men, to
perform a generous action: in so free and kind a manner did they
contribute to my relief, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught,
and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish.
Mr Ledyard, as quoted by Mungo Park in his travels into Africa.

Place the white man on Afric's coast,
Whose swarthy sons in blood
delight,
Who of their scorn to Europe boast,
And paint their very
demons white:
There, while the sterner sex disdains
To soothe the
woes they cannot feel,
Woman will strive to heal his pains,
And
weep for those she cannot heal:
Hers is warm pity's sacred glow;

From all her stores she bears a part,
And bids the spring of hope
re-flow,
That languish'd in the fainting heart.

"What though so pale his haggard face,
So sunk and sad his
looks,"--she cries;
"And far unlike our nobler race,
With crisped
locks and rolling eyes;
Yet misery marks him of our kind;
We see
him lost, alone, afraid;
And pangs of body, griefs in mind,

Pronounce him man, and ask our aid.
"Perhaps in some far-distant shore
There are who in these forms
delight;
Whose milky features please them more,
Than ours of jet
thus burnished bright;
Of such may be his weeping wife,
Such
children for their sire may call,
And if we spare his ebbing life,
Our
kindness may preserve them all."
Thus her compassion Woman shows:
Beneath the line her acts are
these;
Nor the wide waste of Lapland-snows
Can her warm flow of
pity freeze: -
"From some sad land the stranger comes,
Where joys
like ours are never found;
Let's soothe him in our happy homes,

Where freedom sits, with plenty crown'd.
'Tis good the fainting soul to cheer,
To see the famish'd stranger fed;

To milk for him the mother-deer,
To smooth for him the furry bed.

The powers above our Lapland bless
With good no other people
know;
T'enlarge the joys that we possess,
By feeling those that we
bestow!"
Thus in extremes of cold and heat,
Where wandering man may trace
his kind;
Wherever grief and want retreat,
In Woman they
compassion find;
She makes the female breast her seat,
And
dictates mercy to the mind.
Man may the sterner virtues know,
Determined justice, truth severe;

But female hearts with pity glow,
And Woman holds affliction
dear;
For guiltless woes her sorrows flow,
And suffering vice
compels her tear;
'Tis hers to soothe the ills below,

And bid life's
fairer views appear:
To Woman's gentle kind we owe
What

comforts and delights us here;
They its gay hopes on youth bestow,

And care they soothe, and age they cheer.
1807
"THE BIRTH OF FLATTERY".
Omnia habeo, nec quicquam habeo;
Quidquid, dicunt, laudo; id
rursum si negant, laudo id quoque; Negat quis, nego; ait, aio;

Postremo imperavi egomet mihi
Omnia assentari.
TERENCE, in Eunuch.
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery is the food of fools;

Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to taste a bit.
SWIFT.

The Subiect--Poverty and Cunning described--When united, a jarring
Couple--Mutual reproof--the Wife consoled by a Dream--Birth of a
Daughter--Description and