Well sped their errand; with a patriot zeal
They spread the blessing for their country's weal.
Where India's swarthy millions crowd the strand,
And round that isle, which crowns their pointed land,
Speeds the good angel with the balmy breath,
And checks the dreadful tyranny of death:
Whate'er we hear to hurt the peace of life,
Of Candian treachery and British strife,
The sword of commerce, nations bought and sold,
They owe to England more than mines of gold;
England has sent a balm for private woe;
England strikes down the nations' bitterest foe.
Europe, amidst the clangor of her arms,
While life was threaten'd with a thousand harms,
And Charity was freezing to its source,
Still saw fair Science keep her steady course;
And, while whole legions fell, by friends deplor'd,
New germs of life sprung up beneath the sword,
And spread amain.—Then, in our bosoms, why
Must exultation mingle with a sigh?
Thought takes the retrospect of years just fled,
And, conjuring up the spirits of the dead,
Whispers each dear and venerated name
Of the last victims ere the blessing came,
Worthies, who through the lands that gave them birth
Breath'd the strong evidence of growing worth;
Parents, cut down in life's meridian day,
And childhood's thousand thousand swept away;
Life's luckless mariners! ye, we deplore
Who sunk within a boat's length of the shore [A].
[Footnote A: So lately as the year 1793, the small-pox was carried to the
Isle of France by a Dutch ship, and there destroyed five thousand four
hundred persons in six weeks.—Woodville.]
A stranger youth, from his meridian sky,
Buoyant with hopes, came here but came to die!
O'er his sad fate I've ponder'd hours away,
It suits the languor of a gloomy day:
He left his bamboo groves, his pleasant shore,
He left his friends to hear new oceans roar,
All confident, ingenuous, and bold,
He heard the wonders by the white men told;
With firm assurance trod the rolling deck,
And saw his isle diminish to a speck,
Plough'd the rough waves, and gain'd our northern clime,
In manhood's ripening sense and nature's prime.
Oh! had the fiend been vanquished ere he came,
The gen'rous youth had spread my country's fame.
Had known that honour dwells among the brave,
And England had not prov'd the stranger's grave:
Then, ere his waning sand of life had run,
Poor ABBA THULE might hare seen his son! [A]
[Footnote A: Lee Boo, second son of the King of the Pelew Islands, was
brought to England by Capt. Wilson, and died of the Small-pox at
Rotherhithe, in 1784.]
Rise, exultation! spirit, louder speak!
Pity, dislodge thy dewdrops from my cheek:
Sleep sound, forefathers; sleep, brave stranger boy,
While truth impels the current of my joy:
To all mankind, to all the earth 'tis giv'n,
Conviction travels like the light of heav'n:
Go, blessing, from thy birth-place still expand,
For that dear birth-place is my native land!
A nation consecrates th' auspicious day,
And wealth, and rank, and talents lead the way!
Time, with triumphant hand, shall truth diffuse,
Nor ask the unbought efforts of the Muse.
Mothers! the pledges of your loves caress,
And heave no sighs but sighs of tenderness.
Fathers, be firm! keep down the fallen foe,
And on the memory of domestic woe
Build resolution,—Victory shall increase
Th' incalculable wealth of private peace;
And such a victory, unstain'd with gore,
That strews its laurels at the cottage door,
Sprung from the farm, and from the yellow mead,
Should be the glory of the pastoral reed.
In village paths, hence, may we never find
Their youth on crutches, and their children blind;
Nor, when the milk-maid, early from her bed,
Beneath the may bush that embow'rs her head,
Sings like a bird, e'er grieve to meet again
The fair cheek injur'd by the scars of pain;
Pure, in her morning path, where'er she treads,
Like April sunshine and the flow'rs it feeds,
She'll boast new conquests; Love, new shafts to fling;
And Life, an uncontaminated spring.
In pure delight didst thou, my soul, pursue
A task to conscience and to kindred due,
And, true to feeling and to Nature, deem
The dairy's boast thy own appropriate theme;
Hail now the meed of pleasurable hours,
And, at the foot of Science, strew thy flow'rs!