Leans oer its humble gate. & thinks the whileOh that for me some home like this would smile. Some hamlet shade, to yield my sickly form. Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm. Where, round the cot's romantic glade are seen 305 Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm! 310 There should my hand no stinted boon assign To wretched hearts with sorrows such as mine!— That generous wish can soothe unpitied care, And Hope half mingles with the poor man's pray'r. Hope! when I mourn, with sympathizing mind, 315 The wrongs of fate, the woes of human kind, Thy blissful omens bid my spirit see The boundless fields of rapture yet to be ; I watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan, And learn the future by the past of man, 320 Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time, And rule the spacious world from clime to clime; Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, Trace every wave, and culture every shore. On Erie's banks, where tygers steal along, 325 And the dread Indian chants a dismal song, Where human fiends on midnight errands walk, Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men ; 330 And silence watch, on woodland heights around, In Libyan groves, where damned rites are done, That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun, Truth shall arrest the murd'rous arm profane, Wild Obi flies"-the veil is rent in twain. 335 Where barb'rous hordes on Scythian mountains roam, Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home; 340 Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines, From Guinea's coast to Sibir's dreary mines, 8 Truth shall pervade th' unfathom'd darkness there, 345 |