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النشر الإلكتروني

CHARITY.

Quo nihil majus meliusve terris
Fata donavere, bonique divi:

Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
Tempora priscum.

HOR. Lib. IV, Ode 2.

FAIREST and foremost of the train that wait

On man's most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee Charity or love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Prosper (I press thee with a pow'rful plea)
A task I venture on, impell'd by thee:
O never seen but in thy blest effects,

Or felt but in the soul that Heav'n selects;

Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known To other hearts, must have thee in his own. 10

Come, promp me with benevolent desires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And though disgrac'd and slighted, to redeem
A poet's name, by making thee the theme.
God, working ever on a social plan,

By various ties attaches man to man:
He made at first, though free and unconfin'd,
One man the common father of the kind;

That ev'ry tribe, though plac'd as he sees best,
Where seas or deserts part them from the rest,
Diff'ring in language, manners, or in face,

Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook--lamented, and with tears as just

As ever mingled with heroic dust,

Steer'd Britain's oak into a world unknown,
And in his country's glory sought his own,
Wherever he found man, to nature true,

The rights of man were sacred in his view;
He sooth'd with gifts, and greeted with a smile,

The simple native of the new found isle;

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He spurn'd the wretch, that slighted or withstood The tender argument of kindred blood,

Nor would endure that any should control

His freeborn brethren of the southern pole.

But though some nobler minds a law respect, That none shall with impunity neglect,

In baser souls unnumber'd evils meet,

To thwart it's influence, and it's end defeat.

While Cook is lov'd for savage lives he sav'd,
See Cortez odious for a world enslav'd!

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Where wast thou then, sweet Charity? where then,

Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?

Wast thou in monkish cells and nunn'ries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No.-Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear, not love; and Heav'n abhors the fee.
Wherever found, (and all men need thy care)
Nor age nor infancy could find thec there.

The hand, that slew till it could slay no more,
Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian

gore.

Their prince, as justly seated on his throne
As vain imperial Philip on his own,

Trick'd out of all his royalty by art,

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That stripp'd him bare, and broke his honest heart, Died by the sentence of a shaven priest,

For scorning what they taught him to detest.

How dark the veil, that intercepts the blaze

Of Heav'n's mysterious purposes

and ways;

God stood not, though he seem'd to stand, aloof;
And at this hour the conqu'ror feels the proof:
The wreath he won drew down an instant curse,
The fretting plague is in the public purse,
The canker'd spoil corrodes the pining state,
Starv'd by that indolence their mines create.

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Oh could their ancient Incas rise again, How would they take up Israel's taunting strain! Art thou too fall'n, Iberia! Do we see

The robber and the murd'rer weak as we?

Thou, that hast wasted Earth, and dar'd despise

Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,

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Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid
Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal rest,
To see the oppressor in his turn oppress'd.
Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand
Roll'd over all our desolated land,

Shook principalities and kingdoms down,

And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boasted pow'rs,
And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours.
"Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,

And Vengeance executes what Justice wills.
Again-the band of commerce was design'd

'T' associate all the branches of mankind;
And if a boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe.
Wise to promote whatever end he means,
God opens fruitful nature's various scenes:

Each climate needs what other climes produce,

And offers something to the gen'ral use;

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