So ’twere to cramp its use, if I

Should hook it to some useful end.


‘YOU ASK ME, WHY, THO’ ILL AT EASE.’

You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease,

Within this region I subsist,

Whose spirits falter in the mist,

And languish for the purple seas.

It is the land that freemen till, 5

That sober-suited Freedom chose,