O thou who from the mountain's height

    Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight

  Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;

    Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain

  Recallest thy Palmyra's ancient pride,

    Amid whose desolated domes

    Secure the savage chacal roams,

  Where from the fragments of the hallow'd fane

  The Arabs rear their miserable homes!

  Hear Genius hear thy children's cry!

    Not always should'st thou love to brood

    Stern o'er the desert solitude

  Where seas of sand toss their hot surges high;

    Nor Genius should the midnight song

  Detain thee in some milder mood

    The palmy plains among

  Where Gambia to the torches light

  Flows radiant thro' the awaken'd night.

  Ah, linger not to hear the song!

  Genius avenge thy children's wrong!

  The Daemon COMMERCE on your shore

    Pours all the horrors of his train,

  And hark! where from the field of gore

    Howls the hyena o'er the slain!

  Lo! where the flaming village fires the skies!

  Avenging Power awake—arise!

  Arise thy children's wrong redress!

  Ah heed the mother's wretchedness

  When in the hot infectious air

    O'er her sick babe she bows opprest—

  Ah hear her when the Christians tear

    The drooping infant from her breast!

    Whelm'd in the waters he shall rest!

  Hear thou the wretched mother's cries,

  Avenging Power awake! arise!

    By the rank infected air

    That taints those dungeons of despair,

    By those who there imprison'd die

    Where the black herd promiscuous lie,

    By the scourges blacken'd o'er

    And stiff and hard with human gore,

    By every groan of deep distress

    By every curse of wretchedness,

    By all the train of Crimes that flow

    From the hopelessness of Woe,

    By every drop of blood bespilt,

    By Afric's wrongs and Europe's guilt,

    Awake! arise! avenge!

  And thou hast heard! and o'er their blood-fed plains

  Swept thine avenging hurricanes;

  And bade thy storms with whirlwind roar

  Dash their proud navies on the shore;

  And where their armies claim'd the fight

  Wither'd the warrior's might;

  And o'er the unholy host with baneful breath

  There Genius thou hast breath'd the gales of Death.

  So perish still the robbers of mankind!

  What tho' from Justice bound and blind

  Inhuman Power has snatch'd the sword!

    What tho' thro' many an ignominious age

    That Fiend with desolating rage

  The tide of carnage pour'd!

  Justice shall yet unclose her eyes,

  Terrific yet in wrath arise,

  And trample on the tyrant's breast,

  And make Oppresion groan opprest.

  To my own

  MINIATURE PICTURE

  taken at two years of age.

  And I was once like this! that glowing cheek

  Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes, that brow

  Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze

  Dies o'er the sleeping surface! twenty years

  Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends

  Who once so dearly prized this miniature,

  And loved it for its likeness, some are gone

  To their last home; and some, estranged in heart,

  Beholding me with quick-averted glance

  Pass on the other side! But still these hues

  Remain unalter'd, and these features wear

  The look of Infancy and Innocence.

  I search myself in vain, and find no trace

  Of what I was: those lightly-arching lines

  Dark and o'erhanging now; and that mild face

  Settled in these strong lineaments!—There were

  Who form'd high hopes and flattering ones of thee

  Young Robert! for thine eye was quick to speak

  Each opening feeling: should they not have known

  When the rich rainbow on the morning cloud

  Reflects its radiant dies, the husbandman

  Beholds the ominous glory sad, and fears

  Impending storms? they augur'd happily,

  For thou didst love each wild and wonderous tale

  Of faery fiction, and thine infant tongue

  Lisp'd with delight the godlike deeds of Greece

  And rising Rome; therefore they deem'd forsooth

  That thou shouldst tread PREFERMENT'S pleasant path.

  Ill-judging ones! they let thy little feet

  Stray in the pleasant paths of POESY,

  And when thou shouldst have prest amid the crowd

  There didst thou love to linger out the day

  Loitering beneath the laurels barren shade.

  SPIRIT of SPENSER! was the wanderer wrong?

  This little picture was for ornament

  Design'd, to shine amid the motley mob

  Of Fashion and of Folly,—is it not

  More honour'd by this solitary song?