In the eternal book of life are borne, Written in blood, those cries, which then sent forth Thy lips to Heaven, such fury doom’d to mourn, And yet against my country call in wrath. Forbidding glory and success attend The fatal field of crimes. Will they ne’er cease? Will not the bitter expiation end Sufficed of three eventful centuries? We are not now those who on daring’s wing, Before the world, the Atlantic’s depths disdain’d, And from the silence found thee covering, That fiercely tore thee, bleeding and enchain’d! “No, ye are not the same. But my lament Is not for this to cease: I could forget The rigours which my conquerors relent, Their avarice with cruelties beset: The crime was of the age, and not of Spain. But when can I forget the evils sore Which I must miserably yet sustain? Among them one, come, see what I deplore, If horror will not you deter. From you, Your fatal ships first launch’d, the mortal pest, The poison that now desolates me flew. As in doom’d plains by ruthless foes oppress’d, As serpent that incessantly devours, So ever from your coming, to consume Has it raged o’er me. See here, how it lowers! And in the hidden place of death and gloom, Buries my children and my loves. Affords Your skill no remedy? O! ye, who call Yourselves as of America the lords, Have pity on my agony. See, fall Beneath your insane fury, not sufficed One generation, but a hundred slain! And I expiring, desolate, unprized, Beseech assistance, and beseech in vain.” Such were the cries that to Olympus rose, When in the fields of Albion found remote, Variola’s fell havocs to oppose, Kind Nature show’d the happy antidote. The docile mother of the herd was found Enrich’d with this great gift; there stored attent Where from her copious milky founts around She gives so many life and aliment. Jenner to mortals first the gift reveal’d: Thenceforward mothers to their hearts could press Their children without fear to lose them heal’d; Nor fear’d thenceforward in her loveliness The maiden, lest the fatal venom spoil Her cheek of roses, or her brow of snow. All Europe then is join’d in grateful toil, For gift so precious and immense to know, In praises loud to echo Jenner’s name; And altars to his skill to raise decrees, There to long ages hallowing his fame, Beside their tutelar divinities.