THE NEGRO's HOME AND COUNTRY.

(From the same.)

AND is the negro outlaw'd from his birth?

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 all it's rapturous rounds,
To the wild music of barbarian sounds!

Or stretch'd at ease, where broad palmettos shower
Delicious coolness in 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 beroes, slaves to Beauty's charms,
And all the joys of life were love and arms.
---Is not the Negro blest? His generous soil
With harvest-plenty crowns his simple toil;
More than his wants his flocks and fields 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 treacherous Moor;
Or from the Negro's hospitable door

Spurn'd

Spurn'd as a spy, from Europe's hateful clime,
And left to perish for thy country's crime;
Or destin'd 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.)

IVES there a savage ruder than the slave?
Cruch as death, insatiate as the grave,

False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulph that yawns below,
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,

A Christian broker in the trade of blood;
Boisterous 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 inidway 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 grave,
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 van,
Delirious slumbers rock his maudlin brain;

He

He starts in horror from bewildering 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 haram charms his gloating eye,
Where ebon, brown, and olive beauties vie;
His children, sprung alike form 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.'

A

CHRISTIAN NEGROES.

[From the same.]

ND 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,

Felt

Felt the quick pang of keen compunction dart,
And heard a smal! still whisper in his heart,
A voice from heaven, that bade the outcast rise
From shame on earth to glory in the skies.

From isle to isle the welcome tidings ran;
The slave that heard them started into man:
Like Peter sleeping in his chains, he lay,
The angel came, his night was turn'd to day;
Arise!' his fetters fall, his slumbers flee;
He wakes to life, he springs to liberty.

No more to Demon-Gods, in hideous forms,
He pray'd for earthquakes, pestilence, and storms,
In secret agony devour'd the earth,

And, while he spar'd his mother, curs'd his birth:
To heaven the Christian negro sent his sighs,
In morning vows and evening sacrifice;
He pray'd for blessings to descend on those
That dealt to him the cup of many woes;
Thought of his home in Africa forlorn;
Yet, while he wept, rejoic'd that he was born.
No longer burning with unholy fires,
He wallow'd in the dust of base desires;
Ennobling virtue fix'd his hopes above,
Enlarg'd his heart, and sanctified his love:
With humble steps the paths of peace he trod,
A happy pilgrim, for he walk'd with God,

The weeping Minstrel sings,

And while her numbers flow,
My spirit trembles with the strings,
Responsive to the notes of woe.

Would gladness move a sprightlier strain,
And wake this wild Harp's clearest tones,

The chords, impatient to complain,
Are dumb, or only utter moans.

And yet to sooth the mind
With luxury of grief,

The soul to suffering all resign'd

In sorrow's music feels relief.

Thus o'er the light Æolian lyre

The winds of dark November stray, Touch the quick nerve of every wire, And on its magic pulses play ;

Till all the air around,

Mysterious murmurs fill,

A strange bewildering dream of sound,
Most heavenly sweet,-yet mournful still.

O! snatch the Harp from Sorrow's hand,
Hope! who hast been a stranger long;
O! strike it with sublime command,
And be the Poet's life thy song.

Of vanish'd troubles sing,

Of fears for ever fled,

Of flowers that hear the voice of spring,
And burst and blossom from the dead;

Of home, contentment, health, repose,
Serene delights, while years increase;
And weary life's triumphant close

In some calm sunset-hour of peace ;

Of bliss that reigns above,

Celestial May of Youth,

Unchanging as JEHOVAH's love,

And everlasting as His truth :--

Sing,