STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF
THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON, ANNO
DOMINI, 1787.

"Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres."

-HORACE.

"Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.'

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,

WHI

All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears ?

No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waives his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are marked to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen,
I passed-and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page!
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

No present health can health insure,
Nor yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh that humble as my lot,
And scorned as is my strain,

These truths, though known, too much forgot,
I may not teach in vain.

So prays your Clerk with all his heart,

And, ere he quits the pen,

Begs you for once to take his part,
And answer all-Amen!

THE POET'S NEW YEAR'S GIFT.

MARIA! I have every good

For thee wished many a time,
Both sad and in a cheerful mood,
But never yet in rhyme.

To wish thee fairer is no need,
More prudent or more sprightly,
Or more ingenuous, or more freed
From temper-flaws unsightly.

What favour then not yet possessed
Can I for thee require,
In wedded love already blessed,
To thy whole heart's desire?

None here is happy but in part;
Full bliss is bliss divine;
There dwells some wish in every heart,
And doubtless one in thine.

That wish, on some fair future day
Which fate shall brightly gild
('Tis blameless, be it what it may),
I wish it all fulfilled.

THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT.

F

ORCED from home and all its pleasures,
Afric's coast I left forlorn,

To increase a stranger's treasures,

O'er the raging billows borne.

Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;

But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.

Still in thought as free as ever,
What are England's rights, I ask,

Me from my delights to sever,

Me to torture, me to task?

Fleecy locks and black complexion

Cannot forfeit Nature's claim ;

Skins may differ, but affection

Dwells in white and black the same.

Why did all-creating Nature

Make the plant for which we toil? Sighs must fan it, tears must water, Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Think, ye masters, iron-hearted, Lolling at your jovial boards, Think how many backs have smarted For the sweets your cane affords.

Is there, as ye sometimes tell us,
Is there One who reigns on high?
Has He bid you buy and sell us,
Speaking from His throne, the sky?
Ask Him if your knotted scourges,
Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
Agents of His will to use?

Hark! He answers !-wild tornadoes Strewing yonder sea with wrecks, Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, Are the voice with which He speaks. He, foreseeing what vexations

Afric's sons should undergo, Fix'd their tyrants' habitations Where His whirlwinds answer-No.

By our blood in Afric wasted,

Ere our necks received the chain;

By the miseries that we tasted,
Crossing in your barks the main ;
By our sufferings, since ye brought us
To the man-degrading mart,
All sustain'd by patience, taught us
Only by a broken heart!

Deem our nation brutes no longer,

Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard and stronger
Than the colour of our kind.
Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings
Tarnish all your boasted powers,
Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!

THE DOG AND THE WATER LILY.

NO FABLE.

THE noon was and,

HE noon was shady, and soft airs

When 'scaped from literary cares,
I wandered on his side.

My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree

(Two nymphs adorned with every grace That spaniel found for me),

Now wantoned lost in flags and reeds,
Now starting into sight,

Pursued the swallow o'er the meads,
With scarce a slower flight.

It was the time when Ouse displayed
His lilies newly blown ;

Their beauties I intent surveyed,
And one I wished my own.