In the steerage a woman I saw,
Such at least was the form that she wore,
Whose beauty impressed me with awe,
Ne'er taught me by woman before:
She sat, and a shield at her side
Shed light like a sun on the waves,
And, smiling divinely, she cried—
"I go to make freemen of slaves."
Then, raising her voice to a strain,
The sweetest that ear ever heard,
She sung of the slave's broken chain
Wherever her glory appear'd.
Some clouds which had over us hung
Fled, chas'd by her melody clear,
And methought, while she liberty sung,
'Twas liberty only to hear.
Thus swiftly dividing the flood,
To a slave-cultured island we came,
Where a demon, her enemy, stood,
Oppression his terrible name:
In his hand, as a sign of his sway,
A scourge hung with lashes he bore,
And stood looking out for his prey,
From Africa's sorrowful shore.
But soon as, approaching the land,
That goddess-like woman he view'd,
The scourge he let fall from his hand,
With blood of his subjects imbrued.
I saw him both sicken and die,
And, the moment the monster expir'd,
Heard shouts that ascended the sky,
From thousands with rapture inspir'd.
Awaking, how could I but muse
At what such a dream should betide,
But soon my ear caught the glad news,
Which serv'd my weak thought for a guide—
That Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves,
For the hatred she ever has shown
To the black-sceptred rulers of slaves,
Resolves to have none of her own.
Few subjects have agitated this country more deeply than the important question of the abolition of the Slave Trade; if we except, what was its final and necessary consequence, the extinction of Slavery itself. The wrongs of injured Africa seemed at length to have come up in remembrance before God, and the days of mourning to be approaching to their end. The strife of politics and the passions of contending parties gave way to the great cause of humanity, and a Pitt and a Fox, supported by many of their respective adherents, here met on common and neutral ground. The walls of parliament re-echoed with the tones of an eloquence the most sublime and impassioned, because it is the generous emotions of the heart that invigorate the intellect, and give to it a persuasive and commanding power. In the meantime the mammon of unrighteousness was not inactive; commercial cupidity and self-interest raised up a severe and determined resistance, which protracted the final settlement of this question for nearly twenty years. But its doom was sealed. The moral feeling of the country pronounced the solemn verdict of condemnation, long before the decision of Parliament confirmed that verdict by the authority and sanction of law. William Wilberforce, Esq., the great champion of this cause, who had pleaded its rights with an eloquence that had never been surpassed, and a perseverance and ardour that no opposition could subdue, lived to see the traffic in slaves declared illegal by a legislative enactment; his own country rescued from an injurious imputation; and himself distinguished by the honourable and nobly earned title of The Liberator of Africa.[408]
We have already stated that Cowper was urged to contribute some popular ballads in behalf of this benevolent enterprise, and that he composed three, one of which is inserted in the previous page. We now insert another production of the same kind, which we think possesses more pathos and spirit than the former.