No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere,

That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear:

And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:

But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When snatch d from all effectual aid,

We perish'd each alone:

But I beneath a rougher sea,

And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.

THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT.

FORCED 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 enroll❜d 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-Will 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!

HYMN

FOR THE USE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AT OLNEY.

HEAR, Lord, the song of praise and pray'r
In Heav'n, thy dwelling place,
From infants made the public care,
And taught to seek thy face.

Thanks for thy word, and for thy day,

And grant us, we implore, Never to waste in sinful play

Thy holy sabbaths more.

Thanks that we hear!-But O impart
To each desires sincere,

That we may listen with our heart,
And learn as well as hear.

For if vain thoughts the minds engage
Of older far than we,

What hope, that at our heedless age,
Our minds should c'er be free?

Much hope, if thou our spirits take
Under thy gracious sway,
Who canst the wisest wiser make,
And babes as wise as they.

Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows,

A sun that ne'er declines,

And be thy mercies show'r'd on those,
Who plac'd us where it shines.

STANZAS

Subjoined to the Yearly Bill of Mortality of the Parish of All-Saints, Northampton,*

ANNO DOMINI 1787.

Pallida Mors aquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door

Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor!

Hor.

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

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 waves his claim.

Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.