Soon as the gorged cell of dim disease Opes the sick passage to a quicker breeze, From the rank maw, belched up in morbid stream, The hot mist thickens in the side-long beam; When from the noisome cave, the drooping crowd, In fetter'd pairs, break through the misty cloud. With keen despair they eye the morning's glow, And curse the added day that swells their woe. Wet with foul damps, behold, the sad array Disclose their misery to th' unpitying day. What deep dejection presses yonder face? Grief's dusky shade, and sad Reflection's trace. His fellow—see—from orbs of blood-shot ire, On his pale tyrants dart th' indignant fire! Striving with feeble force to press the grate, Yon struggling suff'rer heaves a pond'rous weight. Stripes from the sounding lash, fierce drawn, succeed, To give the fainting trembler hapless speed. Alas! the sounding lash applies in vain; For close united by the fest'ring chain, His dead companion up th' untoward height, (Struck by the mortal ministers of night) The living victim tugs with painful throes; Himself, less blest, reserv'd for keener woes. Now hot black clouds in spreading volumes rise: Now culinary uproar shakes the skies. Spread through the venom'd ship, with bustling care, A joyless meal the surly mates prepare. Marshal'd around th' unwish'd for mess they lie, And the strange nutriments discons'late eye. Sunk with dejection, some the viands spare, Some with keen scorn reject the profer'd fare, Keep the superior pride, that nerves the brave, Nor, free-born, taste the portion of a slave. Then flies the scourge, sparing nor sex her age, Stripe follows stripe, in boundless, brutal rage. Then the vile engines in the hateful cause Are plied relentless; in the straining jaws The wrenching instruments with barbarous force Give the detested food th' unwilling course. But vain are torments; fenced by deathless bounds Beyond the reach of chains, of racks, of wounds, 'Midst adamantine bulwarks thron'd serene, Immortal _Freedom_ holds superior reign; Smiles from the heights of his eternal tower On tyrant's malice, and oppression's power. In the thick gloom of yonder pensive shade, Is lost _Abyeda_'s wretched form display'd, _Abyeda_, once, among the vocal throng, The theme and mistress of each rural song: Once the blithe leader of each festive scene, That woke the music of the joyous green. Never did such a nymph her brightness lave Within _Formosa_'s deep, translucent wave. O'er her smooth form grace threw her waving line, And beauty wandered in the rich design.