The delegated Maid Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones exclaimed, "Thou mild-eyed Form! wherefore, ah! wherefore fled? The power of Justice, like a name all light, Shone from thy brow; but all they, who unblamed Should multitudes against their brethren rush? To her the tutelary Spirit replied: (Victims at once and executioners) The congregated husbandmen lay waste noon, Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease, In sports unwieldy toss his island-bulk, A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand. And steered its course which way the vapour went. The Maiden paused, musing what this might mean. But long time passed not, ere that brighter cloud Returned more bright: along the plain it swept; And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged A dazzling form, broad-bosomed, bold of eye, And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound. Not more majestic stood the healing God, When from his bow the arrow sped that slew Huge Python. Shrieked Ambition's giant throng, And with them hissed the locust-fiends that crawled 270 And glittered in Corruption's slimy track. Great was their wrath, for short they knew their reign : And such commotion made they, and uproar, # • The Slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a passport to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of which the thoughts are better than the language in which they are conveyed. Ω σκότου πύλας, Θάνατε, προλοίπων Αλλά και κυκλοισι χοροι τύποισι Δασκίοις επι πτερύγεσσι σησι Ενθα μαν Ερασται Ερωμένησιν LITERAL TRANSLATION. Leaving the gates of darkness, O Death! hasten thou to a race yoked with misery! Thou wilt not be received with lacerations of cheeks; nor with funereal ululation-but with circling dances, and the joy of songs. Thou art terrible indeed, yet thou dwelleth with Liberty, stern Genius! Barne on thy dark pinions over the swelling of Ocean, they return to their native country. There, by the side of fountains beneath citron-groves, the lovers tell to their beloved what horrors, being men, they had endured from men. The infuriate spirits of the murdered make "Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven! (To her the tutelary Spirit said) Soon shall the morning struggle into day, Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven! All conscious Presence of the universe! Nature's vast Ever-acting Energy! In will, in deed, Impulse of All to All! Whether Thy love with unrefracted ray Beam on the Prophet's purged eye, or if Diseasing realms the enthusiast, wild of thought, Scatter new frenzies on the infected throng, Thou both inspiring and predooming both, Fit instruments and best, of perfect end: Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven!" And first a landscape rose, More wild and waste and desolate than where THE first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state of suspended animation. Bat as in my very first conception of the tale I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness no less than with the liveliness of a vision, I trust that I shall be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come, in the course of the present year. It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggrel version of two monkish Latin hexameters : |