s toils,
Is public safety purchas'd and secur'd.
Negative merit, "I have done no harm,"
Is an inglorious boast: shall he who sits
Secure, enjoying Plenty in the lap
Of Ease, vaunt his recumbent Virtues? ... He
Brand with harsh epithets the Warrior's toils?
While 'tis to them he owes sincerest thanks
For Peace and Safety, that are earn'd in War....
As well might he who eats the flesh of Lambs,
And smacks the ichor in a savoury dish,
Boast his humanity, and say "My hand
Ne'er slew a Lamb;" and censure as a crime,
The Butcher's cruel, necessary trade.
In Battle, the chance-medley game of Death,
Where every one still hopes 'till he expires,
Less horror shocks the mind contemplative,
Than where, in slow procession's solemn pace,
Doom'd wretches meet their destin'd fate in bonds,
Who know the moment to expect the blow,
And count the moments 'till that moment comes:
Or where Oppression wages War, in Peace,
On the defenceless: on the hapless man
Who holds his breath but by another's will:
Whose Life is only one long cruel Death! ...
Hardly he fares, and hopelessly he toils;
And when his driver's anger, or caprice,
Or wanton cruelty, inflicts a blow,
Not daring to look angry at the whip,
Oh! see him meekly clasp his hands and bow
To every stroke: no lurid deathful scene
In Battle's rage, so racks the feeling heart;
Not all the thunders of infuriate War,
Disploding mines, and crafting, bursting bombs,
Are half so horrid as the sounding lash
That echoes through the Carribean groves.
Incessant is the War of Human Wit,
Oppos'd to bestial strength; and variously
Successful: in these happy fertile climes,
Man still maintains his surreptitious power;
Reigns o'er the Brutes, and, with the voice of Fate,
Says "This to-day, and that to-morrow dies."
Though here our Shambles blazon the Renown,
The Victory, and Rule, of lordly Man;
Far wider tracts within the Torrid Zone
Own no such Lord: where Sol's intenser rays
Create in bestial hearts more fervid fires,
And deadlier poisons arm the Serpent's tooth;
In gloomy shades, impassable to Man,
Where matted foliage exclude the Sun,
The torpid Birds that crawl from bough to bough
Utter their notes of terror: while beneath
Fury and Venom, couch'd in murky dens,
Hissing and yelling, guard the hideous gloom.
O'er dreary wastes, untrod by human feet,
Without controul the lordly Lion reigns;
And every creature trembles at his voice:
When risen from his den, he prances forth,
Ex