XXXVIII.

THE DYING NEGRO.

Tune: The Cherokee Death Song.

1 O'er my toil-wither'd limbs sickly languors

are shed, And the dark mists of death on my eyelids

are spread; Before my last sufferings how gladly I bend ! For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a

friend.

2 Against the hot breezes hard struggles my breast, Slow, slow beats my heart, and I hasten to rest; No more shall sharp anguish my faint bosom

rend, For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a

friend.

3 No more shall I sink in the deep-scorching air, No more shall keen hunger my weak body tear, No more on my limbs shall swift lashes descend, For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a

friend.

4 Ye ruffians! who tore me from all I held dear, Who mock'd at my wailings and smild at my

tear, Now, now shall I 'scape, every suffering shall

end, For the strong arm of Death is the arm of a

friend.

No longer the Negroes complain,

Nor blindly accuse Fate's decree, GLAD TIDINGs are borne o'er the main,

For Britons have said BE YE FREE!

On them hath light graciously beam'd,

They strive to assuage all our smart, The Black as a Brother is deem'd,

And love dawns in every heart.

They told us before of their God,

Their Saviour who came to redeem, Our backs smarting still with the rod,

We thought it a fable or dream.
But now we are sure it is true,

Their actions confirm our belief,
Nor longer their servants shall rue
The Gospel which brings such relief!

3
The fetters they strike from our hands

With a love that is willing and kind; And they say they will loosen the bands,

Which fetter the Negro's rude mind.
Oh! if Christ bas commanded you this,

Delay not to shew us the way,
With Him must be concord and bliss,
And Him will we serve and obey.

4
And thus, for the evils you've wrought,

You will make us, indeed, great amends, We'll forget that a Black e'er was bought,

Since Britons are now our best Friends. Yes, there must be a life after this,

We acknowledge the Heavenly Powers, We shall smile at past tears in that bliss ; Your Saviour and God shall be ours.

J. P.

XL.

MUSIC.

A GLEE COMPOSED IN 1779

BY S. WEBBE.

Music's the language of the Blest above;

No voice but Music's can express

The joys that happy souls possess,
Nor in just raptures tell the wond'rous power of

love.
'Tis Nature's dialect, design'd
To charm and captivate the mind.

Music's an universal good,
That doth dispense its joys around,
In all the elegance of sound,

To be by men admir’d, by Angels understood.

181

LETTER IV:

ON CONVIVIAL SONGS,

Sept. 10, 1810.

SIR,

FROM

rom your observations on Moral Songs and the joint Collection of Moral and Miscellaneous which you have given, we proceed to the Convivial. You say in your Essay on Songwriting (p. xxxi, &c.) “as Milton, in his Comus, has not scrupled to let the advocate of pleasure be heard, and that, in very persuasive language, trusting to the counteraction of more solid arguments in favour of sobriety, it might perhaps be excess of rigour to banish from song-poetry every lively effusion of this kind. The pleasures which this lax morality of poets has been chiefly employed to excuse and varnish, have at all times been those of love and wine, allowable, indeed, in a certain degree to exhilarate the anxious lives of mortals, but always prone to pass the bounds of moderation. Music has lent a willing aid to these incitements; and the classes of amorous and drinking Songs

R