But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth, This gay profusion of luxurious bliss, This pomp of Nature? what their balmy meads. Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain? By vagrant birds dispers'd, and wafting winds. What their unplanted fruits? what the cool draughts, The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health, Their forests yield? their toiling insects what, Their silky pride, and vegetable robes? Ah! what avail their fatal treasures, hid Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth, Golconda's gems, and sad Potosi's mines? Where dwelt the gentlest children of the sun! What all that Afric's golden rivers roll, Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores? Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace, Whate'er the humanizing muses teach; The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast; Progressive truth, the patient force of thought; Investigation calm, whose silent powers Command the world; the light that leads to Heaven; Kind equal rule, the government of laws, And all-protecting freedom, which alone Sustains the name and dignity of man: These are not theirs. The parent sun himself Seems o'er this world of slaves to tyrannize; And, with oppressive ray, the roseate bloom Of beauty blasting, gives the gloomy hue, And feature gross; or worse, to ruthless deeds, Mad jealousy, blind rage, and fell revenge, Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells not there, The soft regards, the tenderness of life, The heart-shed tear, the ineffable delight Of sweet humanity: these court the beam Of milder climes; in selfish fierce desire, And the wild fury of voluptuous sense, There lost. The very brute creation there This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.
Lo! the green serpent, from his dark abode, Which even imagination fears to tread, At noon forth-issuing, gathers up his train In orbs immense, then, darting out anew, Seeks the refreshing fount, by which diffus'd He throws his folds; and while, with threatening tongue And dreadful jaws erect, the monster curls His flaming crest, all other thirst appall'd, Or shivering flies, or check'd at distance stands, Nor dares approach. But still more direful he, The small close-lurking minister of fate, Whose high concocted venom through the veins A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift The vital current. Form'd to humble man, This child of vengeful Nature! There, sublim'd To fearless lust of blood, the savage race Roam, licens'd by the shading hour of guilt, And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut His sacred eye. The tiger, darting fierce, Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd; The lively-shining leopard, speckled o'er With many a spot, the beauty of the waste; And, scorning all the taming arts of man, The keen hyena, fellest of the fell: These, rushing from the inhospitable woods Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild, Innumerous glare around their shaggy king, Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand; And, with imperious and repeated roars, Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks Crowd near the guardian swain; the nobler herds, Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease, They ruminating lie, with horror hear The coming rage. The awaken'd village starts; And to her fluttering breast the mother strains Her thoughtless infant. From the pirate's den, Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang, escap'd, The wretch half-wishes for his bonds again; While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds, From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile.