Humanity, or the rights of nature, a poem in two books. By the author of sympathy [i.e. S. J. Pratt] |
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| I. |
| II. |
 | Humanity, or the rights of nature, a poem |  |
Fierce thro' the East see Despotism run
More fell, more fatal, than the torrid sun,
Frantic before him move a sanguine band,
The ruthless agents of his murd'rous hand;
Skulking behind, in dumb allegiance wait,
Nurs'd up in blood, his various tools of fate,
To torture life, and hideous deaths devise
In varied shapes of cruelty they rise!
Dey, Sultan, Signior, Emperor and King,
Chief, Visier, Cailif, each inferior Thing;
Some do his bidding in the noon of day,
And some at midnight seize upon their prey;
Submission, terror, chastisement, combine,
To sink the abject vassal to the swine,
Reason below degraded instinct falls,
And Man is bound like herds within the stalls,
His spirit dies subdued by hard controul,
The useless body moves without a soul;
No spark of heav'nly fire the mass can warm,
Nor public virtue touch, nor private charm,
But general cowardice, by horror bred
Courage unstrung, and manly honour dead;
For oh! the dart, the gibbet, and the wheel
Are the least terrors that a slave can feel,
Of these the anguish scarce can rage its hour
Ere Death appears in soft relief of power,
Death, a kind refuge in the last despair,
But a long life of slavery who can bear?
More fell, more fatal, than the torrid sun,
Frantic before him move a sanguine band,
The ruthless agents of his murd'rous hand;
Skulking behind, in dumb allegiance wait,
Nurs'd up in blood, his various tools of fate,
To torture life, and hideous deaths devise
In varied shapes of cruelty they rise!
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Chief, Visier, Cailif, each inferior Thing;
Some do his bidding in the noon of day,
And some at midnight seize upon their prey;
Submission, terror, chastisement, combine,
To sink the abject vassal to the swine,
Reason below degraded instinct falls,
And Man is bound like herds within the stalls,
His spirit dies subdued by hard controul,
The useless body moves without a soul;
No spark of heav'nly fire the mass can warm,
Nor public virtue touch, nor private charm,
But general cowardice, by horror bred
Courage unstrung, and manly honour dead;
For oh! the dart, the gibbet, and the wheel
Are the least terrors that a slave can feel,
Of these the anguish scarce can rage its hour
Ere Death appears in soft relief of power,
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But a long life of slavery who can bear?
| Humanity, or the rights of nature, a poem | |