The Works of William Cowper Comprising his poems, correspondence, and translations. With a life of the author, by the editor, Robert Southey |
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ON PEDIGREE.
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 | The Works of William Cowper |  |
ON PEDIGREE.
FROM EPICHARMUS.
My mother! if thou love me, name no moreMy noble birth! Sounding at every breath
My noble birth, thou kill'st me. Thither fly,
As to their only refuge, all from whom
Nature withholds all good besides; they boast
Their noble birth, conduct us to the tombs
Of their forefathers, and from age to age
Ascending, trumpet their illustrious race:
But whom hast thou beheld, or canst thou name
Derived from no forefathers? Such a man
Lives not; for how could such be born at all?
And if it chance that, native of a land
Far distant, or in infancy deprived
Of all his kindred, one, who cannot trace
His origin, exist, why deem him sprung
From baser ancestry than theirs who can?
My mother! he whom nature at his birth
Endow'd with virtuous qualities, although
An Æthiop and a slave, is nobly born.
| The Works of William Cowper | |