Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand
Had heaved the floods, and fixed the trembling land;
When life sprang startling at thy plastic call,
Endless her forms, and man the lord of all!
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee,
To wear eternal chains and bow the knee?
Was man ordained the slave of man to toil,
Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil;
Weighed in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamped us in a heavenly mould!
She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge ;
No homeless Libyan, on the stormy deep,
To call upon his country's name, and weep!
Lo! once in triumph, on his boundless plain,
The quivered chief of Congo loved to reign;
With fires proportioned to his native sky,
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scoured with wild feet his sun-illumined zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own!
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man!
The plunderer came!-alas! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian isles;
Forever fall'n! -no son of Nature now,
With Freedom chartered on his manly brow!
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore!
The shrill horn blew; at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell!
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!
Poor fettered man! I hear thee whispering low Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Wo! Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbor there A wish but death a passion but despair?
The widowed Indian, when her lord expires,
Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires! So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh!
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!
But not to Libya's barren climes alone,
To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,
Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!
Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!
How long your tribes have trembled and obeyed?
How long was Timour's iron sceptre swayed,
Whose marshalled hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Raged o'er your plundered shrines and altars bare,
With blazing torch and gory cimeter, -
Stunned with the cries of death each gentle gale,
And bathed in blood the verdure of the vale!
Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame,
Wien Brama's children perished for his name,
The martyr smiled beneath avenging power,
And braved the tyrant in his torturing hour!
When Europe sought your subject realms to gain,
And stretched her giant sceptre o'er the main,
Taught her proud barks the winding way to shape,
And braved the stormy Spirit of the Cape;
Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh
To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye?
Did Peace descend, to triumph and to save,
When freeborn Britons crossed the Indian wave?
Ah, no! to more than Rome's ambition true,
The Nurse of Freedom gave it not to you!
She the bold route of Europe's guilt began,
And, in the march of nations, led the van!
Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone,
And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own,
Degenerate trade! thy minions could despise
The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries;
Could lock, with impious hands, their teeming store,
While famished nations died along the shore :
Could mock the groans of fellow-men, and bear
The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair;
Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name,
And barter, with their gold, eternal shame!
But hark! as bowed to earth the Bramin kneels,
From heavenly climes propitious thunder peals!
Of India's fate her guardian spirits tell,
Prophetic murmurs breathing on the shell,
And solemn sounds that awe the listening mind,
Roll on the azure paths of every wind.
"Foes of mankind! (her guardian spirits say,)
Revolving ages bring the bitter day,
When heaven's unerring arm shall fall on you,
And blood for blood these Indian plains bedew;
Nine times have Brama's wheels of lightning hurled
His awful presence o'er the alarmed world;
Nine times hath Guilt, through all his giant frame,
Convulsive trembled, as the Mighty came;
Nine times hath suffering Mercy spared in vain -
But Heaven shall burst her starry gates again!
He comes! dread Brama shakes the sunless sky
With murmuring wrath, and thunders from on high,
Heaven's fiery horse, beneath his warrior form,
Paws the light clouds, and gallops on the storm!
Wide waves his flickering sword; his bright arms glow
Like summer suns, and light the world below!
Earth, and her trembling isles in Ocean's bed,
Are shook; and Nature rocks beneath his tread!
"To pour redress on India's injured realm,
The oppressor to dethrone, the proud to whelm ;
To chase destruction from her plundered shore
With arts and arms that triumphed once before,
The tenth Avatar comes! at Heaven's command
Shall Seriswattee wave her hallowed wand!
And Camdeo bright, and Ganesa sublime,
Shall bless with joy their own propitious clime! -
Come, Heavenly Powers! primeval peace restore!
Love! Mercy - Wisdom!-rule for evermore!"
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