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

Áfric'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
HE noon was shady, and soft airs

Swept Ouse's silent tide,
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 flays 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.

With cane extended far I sought

To steer it close to land ; But still the prize, though nearly caught,

Escaped my eager hand.

Beau marked my unsuccessful pains

With fixed considerate face,
And puzzling set his puppy brains

To comprehend the case.

But with a chirrup clear and strong,

Dispersing all his dream,
I thence withdrew, and followed long

The windings of the stream.

My ramble ended, I returned;

Beau, trotting far before,
The floating wreath again discerned,

And plunging, left the shore.

I saw him, with that lily cropped,

Impatient swim to meet My quick approach, and soon he dropped

The treasure at my feet.

Charmed with the sight, the world I cried,

Shall hear of this thy deed : My dog shall mortify the pride

Of man's superior broed:

But chief myself I will enjoin,

Awake at duty's call,
To show a love as prompt as thine

To Him who gives me all,

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. THROCKMORTON'S

BULLFINCH.

Y ,
E Nymphs, if e'er your eyes were red

Oh, share Maria's grief !
Her fav'rite, even in his cage,
(What will not hunger's cruel rage ?)

Assassined by a thief.
Where Rhenus strays his vines among,
The egg was laid from which he sprung,

And though by Nature mute,
Or only with a whistle blessed,
Well taught he all the sounds expressed

Of flageolet or flute.
The honours of his ebon poll
Were brighter than the sleekest mole,

His bosom of the hue
With which Aurora decks the skies,
When piping winds shall soon arise

To sweep away the dew.
Above, below, in all the house,
Dire foe alike of bird and mouse,

No cat had leave to dwell;
And Bully's cage supported stood
On props of smoothest shaven wood,

Large-built and latticed well,
Well-latticed—but the grate, alas !
Not rough with wire of steel or brass,

For Bully's plumage sake,

But smooth with wands from Ouse's side,
With which, when neatly peeled and dried,

The swains their baskets make.

Night veiled the pole : all seemed secure ;
When, led by instinct sharp and sure,

Subsistence to provide,
A beast forth sallied on the scout,
Long backed, long tailed, with whiskered snout,

And badger-coloured hide. He, entering at the study door, Its ample area 'gan explore ;

And something in the wind Conjectured, sniffing round and round, Better than all the books he found,

Food chiefly for the mind.

Just then, by adverse fate impressed,
A dream disturbed poor Bully's rest :

In sleep he seemed to view
A rat fast clinging to the cage,
And, screaming at the sad presage,

Awoke and found it true.

For, aided both by ear and scent,
Right to his mark the monster went,

Ah, Muse, forbear to speak,
Minute the horrors that ensued ;
His teeth were strong, the cage was wood, -

He left poor Bully's beak.
O, had he made that too his prey !
That beak whence issued inany a lay,

Of such mellifluous tone,