Your liking and your lust
Is fresh whiles May doth last: When May is gone, of all the year The pleasant time is past.
It was an aged man, who stood Beside the blue Atlantic sea; They cast his fetters by the flood,
And hailed the time-worn captive free! From his indignant eye there flashed A gleam his better nature gave, And while his tyrants shrunk abashed, Thus spoke the spirit-stricken slave:
"Bring back the chain, whose weight so long These tortured limbs have vainly borne; The word of Freedom from your tongue, My weary ear rejects with scorn.
"T is true, there was-there was a time, I sighed, I panted to be free; And, pining for my sunny clime, Bowed down my stubborn knee.
"Then I have stretched my yearning arms, And shook in wrath my bitter chain; Then, when the magic word had charms, I groaned for liberty in vain!
That freedom ye, at length bestow, And bid me bless my envied fate: Ye tell me I am free to go-
Where?-I am desolate!
"The boundless hope-the spring of joy, Felt when the spirit's strength is young; Which slavery only can alloy,
The mockeries to which I clung, The eyes, whose fond and sunny ray
Made life's dull lamp less dimly burn,— The tones I pined for, day by day, Can ye bid them return?
Bring back the chain! its clanking sound Hath then a power beyond your own ; It brings young visions smiling round, Too fondly loved-too early flown! It brings me days, when these dim eyes
Gazed o'er the wild and swelling sea, Counting how many suns must rise Ere one might hail me free!
Bring back the chain! that I may think 'T is that which weighs my spirit so: And gazing on each galling link,
Dream as I dreamt, of bitter woe! My days are gone;—of hope, of youth, These traces now alone remain; Hoarded with sorrow's sacred truth,
Tears, and my iron chain!
"Freedom! though doomed in pain to live, The freedom of the soul is mine; But all of slavery you could give Around my steps must ever twine. Raise up the head which age hath bent; Renew the hopes that childhood gave; Bid all return kind Heaven once lent,- Till then-I am a Slave!
The Bower of Adam and Eve.
Thus talking hand in hand alone they passed On to their blissful bower; it was a place Chosen by the sovran Planter when he framed All things to Man's delightful use; the roof Of thickest covert was inwoven shade Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub Fenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower, Iris all hues, roses and jessamine
Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaic; under foot the violet,
Crocus and hyacinth with rich inlay
Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone
Of costliest emblem: other creature here
Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none;
Such was their awe of Man. In shady bower More shady and sequestered, though but feigned, Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph,
Thus at their shady lodge arrived, both stood, Both turned, and under open sky adored
The God that made both sky, earth, air, and heaven, Which they beheld, the Moon's resplendent globe, And starry pole: Thou also madest the night, Maker Omnipotent, and thou the day, Which we in our appointed work employed Have finished, happy in our mutual help And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss Ordained by thee, and this delicious place, For us too large, where thy abundance wants Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. But thou hast promised from us two a race To fill the earth, who shall with thee extol Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake, And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep. This said unanimous, and other rites
Observing none, but adoration pure,
Which God likes best, into their inmost bower Handed they went.
How sweet it were, if without feeble fright, Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight, An angel came to us, and we could bear To see him issue from the silent air
At evening in our room, and bend on ours His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers News of dear friends, and children who have never Been dead indeed,-as we shall know for ever. Alas! we think not what we daily see About our hearths,-angels, that are to be, Or may be if they will, and we prepare Their souls and ours to meet in happy air,— A child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings In unison with ours, breeding its future wings.
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