, by some circumstance trivial as this.

Or on some beetling cliff--where the mad waves
Rush echoing thro' the high-arched caves below,
I view some love-reft fair
Whose sighing warms the air,
Gaze anxious on the ocean as it raves
And call on thee-alone, of power to sooth her woe.

Friend of the wretched; smoother of the couch
Of pining hope; thy pitying form I know!
Where thro' the wakeful night,
By a dim taper's light,
Lies a pale youth, upon his pallet low,
Whose wan and woe-worn charms rekindle at thy touch.

Friendless--oppressed by fate--the restless fires
Of his thralled soul prey on his beauteous frame--
Till, strengthened by thine aid,
He shapes some kindred maid,
Pours forth in song the life consuming flame,
And for awhile forgets his sufferings and desires.

Scorner of thoughtless grandeur, thou hast chose
Thy _best-beloved_ from ruddy Nature's breast:
The grotto dark and rude--
The forest solitude--
The craggy mount by blushing clouds carest--
Have altars where thy light etherial glows. [FN#2]

[FN#2] Every nation, however rude, has, as it has been justly
observed, a taste for poetry. This art after all that has and can be
said for and against it, is the language of nature, and among the
relics of the most polished and learned nations little has survived
except such as simply depicts those natural feelings and images which
have ever existed and ever must continue. Most of the great poets
have been individuals of humble condition rising from the mass of the
people by that natural principle which causes the most etherial
particles to rise and the denser to sink to the earth. But, as Byron
exquisitely says, in one of the most wonderfully beautiful pages he
ever composed,

"Many are poets who have never penned
Their inspirations, and, perchance, the best;
They felt, they loved, and died; but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they comprest
The god within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurel'd upon earth."

In the place where I now write amid several hundred Africans of
different ages, and nations, the most debased of any on the face of
the earth, I have been enabled to observe, even in this, last link of
the chain of humanity, the strong natural love for music and poetry.

Any little incident which occurs on the estate where they toil, and
which the greater part of