Now the sad purchase—Heav'ns! my pow'rs refuse, Tho' truth illumines, and tho' fires the muse. Nature recoils, and in her depths profound, Receives, heart-struck, the parricidal wound! As the wan traders pay _the price of blood_, O'er the black prospect gathering terrors brood: The guardian spirits look with horror down, And change their song of peace to joyless groan. E'en the bright angel, to enrol the deed Sent by thron'd _Justice_,—shrouds the inverted head; And, as the mortal crime his fingers trace, Veils, with his snowy vest, his crimson'd face. The gloomy ship, in sable terror drest Receives the burthen of the wretched guest; Torn as his bosom is, still wonder glows As on the vast machine attention grows. Wonder, commix'd with anguish, shakes his frame, At the strange sight his language cannot name. Ropes, tackles, spars and ponderous engines seem As racking instruments, prepar'd for him: And, as his doom new horrors seem t' await, His manly heart sinks at th' uncertain fate. The yawning deck now opes the dreary cell; Hot mists exhale in many a putrid smell. Loaded with chains, at length the hapless slave, Plung'd in the darkness of the floating cave, With horror sees the hatch way close his sight— His last hope leaves him with the parting light! Now from the embattled pests that cloud the shore, And hovering wait the ripe, avenging hour, Their icy Leader calls a blood-nurs'd fiend— Hell ne'er saw direr from her womb ascend! Perch'd on a rack he held his ruthless stand; A scorpion scourge wav'd in his wither'd hand; Snaky his locks—with eye-balls roll'd in flame; _Sin's_ second-born, and _Cruelty_ his name. Him to the trading mast the vengeful King, Precursive sends, with many a venom'd sting; For, _here_, ere Death the slackened heart-string tears, Still savage Cruelty the wound prepares. With flaggy wing th' infected air he wounds, 'Till hovering o'er the vessel's murky bounds, The _master's_ kindred form he cowering spies— Swift through the sanguin'd eye rapacious hies To the congenial mansion rushes prone, And on the willing heart erects his throne. Then Tyranny inflam'd stalks uncontrol'd, And raging Furies their sharp stores unfold. _Pallid_ or _black_—the _free_ or _fetter'd_ band, Fall undistinguish'd by the ruffian hand. Nor age's awe, nor sex's softness charm; Nor law, nor feeling, wrest the blood-steep'd arm. While, skill'd in ev'ry torture that can rend, O'er gasping heaps exults the rav'ning fiend.