Say, shall these tyrants with inhuman aim Our hapless sons and weeping daughters claim? Shall we—O blind!—still aid the ruffian band, That stains our coast, and bares our wretched land? Our realms, alas! abandon'd to despair, Supinely sunk, the slavish shackles wear: Surges in vain defend the burning strand; In vain impervious forests fence the land. Our native monsters treach'rous tameness shew, Forget their fury, and admit the foe; Our rebel crocodiles their fierceness lose, Shrouding their treason in the gelid ooze; Our stingless serpents twine in gentle play, And harmless tygers crop the flow'ry spray; The recreant lion smooths his savage eye, While the dire spoiler stalks unheeded by. Fly to your sep'rate realms, ye chiefs of worth, And call the vengeful pow'rs of _Afric_ forth; Summon Disease, with all her ghastly brood, To greet these traffickers in human blood, Call forth the terrors of the fervid skies; Bid misty demons from your marshes rise; With congregated horrors crowd the plain— And drive these pallid robbers o'er the main! An awful murmur instantly transpires— Th' applause, that wisdom gives, when genius fires; Not the vain shout the shallow rabble draws, But conscious judgment's well-approving pause. Nor with weak praise they greet the scepter'd fair, But speed to execute th' important care. Now thro' the dusky air they range their flight, Veil'd by the cov'ring of the baleful night. To thousand realms the charge vindictive flies: In thousand realms the summon'd furies rise; From the dark stores of pain they dreadful arm— In fell array the hideous legions swarm; Presageful, dire, the grim battalions spread, And waste the brooding night in purpose dread. Red from the foggy east the sun ascends, And gleams new terror on th' envenom'd fiends: Round their ghaunt leaders throng th' unsightly host, Rear the black sign, and fill th' allotted post. In heavy columns troops _lethargic_ sound. Flap their huge banners, throw their opiates round, Fierce o'er the field conflagrant squadrons bend, And fiery _fevers_ thro' the regions send. While from moist clouds, brooding o'er desarts bare, Where _Zambre_'s stagnant lake pollutes the air, Press frigid _agues_ in th' alternate row, And give their chill variety to woe. But chief—the multitude that crowds the field, That points the spear, and lifts the Gorgon shield, Breaks from the slimy marsh and swampy plains, Where proud _Benin_ in triple bulwark reigns. Call'd by the zenith sun, the putrid band Spreads its corrosive poisons o'er the land: Myriads of sprites their gather'd venoms throw, And _acrid_ arrows fly from ev'ry bow.