Hail to Britannia, fair liberty's isle!

Her frown quail'd the tyrant, the slave caught her smile: Fly on the winds, to tell Afric the story;

Say to the mother of mourners, "Rejoice!" Britannia went forth, in her beauty, her glory,

And slaves sprang to men at the sound of her voice: -Praise to the God of our fathers; 'twas He, JEHOVAH, that conquer'd, my country! by thee.

NO. III.-SLAVERY THAT WAS.

AGES, ages have departed

Since the first dark vessel bore
Afric's children, broken-hearted,
To the Caribbean shore;
She like Rachel,

Weeping, for they were no more.

Millions, millions have been slaughter'd
In the fight and on the deep;
Millions, millions more have water'd,
With such tears as captives weep,
Fields of travail,

Where their bones till doomsday sleep.

Mercy, mercy vainly pleading,

Rent her garments, smote her breast,
Till a voice, from heaven proceeding,
Gladden'd all the gloomy west,
"Come, ye weary!

Come, and I will give you rest!"

Tidings, tidings of salvation!

Britons rose with one accord,

Purged the plague-spot from our nation,
Negroes to their rights restored;

Slaves no longer,

FREE-MEN,-FREE-MEN of the LORD.

NO. IV.-SLAVERY THAT IS NOT.

God made all his creatures free;
Life itself is liberty;

GOD ordain'd no other bands

Than united hearts and hands.

Sin th' eternal charter broke,
-Sin, itself earth's heaviest yoke;
Tyranny with sin began,

Man o'er brute, and man o'er man.
Pass five thousand pagan years
Of creation's groans and tears;
To oppression's climax come,
In the crimes of Christendom.
What were these?-Let Afric's sands,
Ocean's depths, West Indian strands,
In the day of wrath declare:

-Oh! the mercy that they were ;—

For they are not,—cannot be ;

Life again is liberty;

And the Negro's only bands

Love-knit hearts, and love-link'd hands.

So the plague of slavery cease!
So return primeval peace!

While the ransom'd tribes record

All the goodness of the LORD.

NO. V. THE NEGRO'S VIGIL:

ON THE EVE OF THE FIRST OF AUGUST, 1834.

"They that watch for the morning :-they that watch for the morning."

HIE to the mountain afar

All in the cool of the even;

Led by yon beautiful star,

First of the daughters of heaven:

Psalm cxxx. 6.

364

SONGS ON THE ABOLITION OF NEGRO SLAVERY.

Sweet to the slave is the season of rest,

Something far sweeter he looks for to-night;
His heart lies awake in the depth of his breast,
And listens till GoD shall say, "Let there be light!"

Climb we the mountain, and stand
High in mid-air, to inhale,
Fresh from our old father-land,
Balm in the ocean-borne gale:
Darkness yet covers the face of the deep;
Spirit of freedom! go forth in thy might,

To break up our bondage like infancy's sleep,

The moment when GoD shall say, "Let there be
light!"

Gaze we, meanwhile, from his peak;
Praying in thought while we gaze;
Watch for the morning's first streak,
Prayer then be turn'd into praise ;
Shout to the valleys, “Behold ye the morn,
Long, long desired but denied to our sight:"
Lo, myriads of slaves into men are new-born;
The word was omnipotent, "Let there be light!"

Hear it and hail it ;-the call,

Island to island prolong;

"

Liberty liberty!-all

Join in the jubilee-song:

Hark! 'tis the children's hosannas that ring;

Hark! they are free-men whose voices unite;

While England, the Indies, and Africa sing,

“Amen, HALLELUJAH !" at "Let there be light!"

SONNETS,

IMITATIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS.

A SEA-PIECE.

IN THREE SONNETS.

SCENE.-Bridlington Quay, 1824.

I.

Ar nightfall, walking on the cliff-crown'd shore,
Where sea and sky were in each other lost;
Dark ships were scudding through the wild uproar,
Whose wrecks ere morn must strew the dreary coast;
I mark'd one well-moor'd vessel tempest-tost,
Sails reef'd, helm lash'd, a dreadful siege she bore,

Her deck by billow after billow cross'd,

While every moment she might be no more:

Yet firmly anchor'd on the nether sand,

Like a chain'd Lion ramping at his foes,

Forward and rearward still she plunged and rose,

Till broke her cable;-then she fled to land,
With all the waves in chase; throes following throes;
She 'scaped, she struck,-she stood upon the strand

II.

The morn was beautiful, the storm gone by;

Three days had pass'd; I saw the peaceful main,
One molten mirror, one illumined plane,

Clear as the blue, sublime, o'erarching sky:
On shore that lonely vessel caught mine eye,

Her bow was seaward, all equipt her train,
Yet to the sun she spread her wings in vain,
Like a caged Eagle, impotent to fly;

There fix'd as if for ever to abide;

Far down the beach had roll'd the low neap-tide,
Whose mingling murmur faintly lull'd the ear:
"Is this," methought, "is this the doom of pride,
Check'd in the onset of thy brave career,
Ingloriously to rot by piecemeal here ?"

III.

Spring-tides return'd, and Fortune smiled; the bay
Received the rushing ocean to its breast;
While waves on waves innumerably prest,
Seem'd, with the prancing of their proud array,
Sea-horses, flash'd with foam, and snorting spray;
Their power and thunder broke that vessel's rest;
Slowly, with new expanding life possest,
To her own element she glid away;
Buoyant and bounding like the polar Whale,
That takes his pastime; every joyful sail
Was to the freedom of the wind unfurl'd,
While right and left the parted surges curl'd:
-Go, gallant Bark, with such a tide and gale,
I'll pledge thee to a voyage round the world.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY,

ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH OF JUNE, 1838.

TO THE QUEEN.

THE orb and sceptre in thy hands they placed,
On thine anointed head a crown of gold;
A purple robe thy virgin form embraced;
Enthroned thou wert, all-glorious to behold:
Before thee lay the Book of God unroll'd;
Thy tongue pronounced, thy pen the covenant traced,
Which men and angels witness'd ;-young and old,