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,

 Prev. P 32/79 next