wild and roving wing I sail, From the green borders of the peopled Earth, And the pale Moon, her duteous fair attendant;
75 From solitary Mars; from the vast orb Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk Dances in ether like the lightest leaf; To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system, Where cheerless Saturn 'midst his watery moons3
so Girt with a lucid zone,' in gloomy pomp, belt Sits like an exiled monarch: fearless thence I launch into the trackless deeps of space, Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear, Of elder beam, which ask no leave to shine
85 Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light From the proud regent of our scanty day; Sons of the morning, first-born of creation, And only less than Him who marks their track, And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
90 Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen Impels me onward through the glowing orbs Of habitable nature, far remote, To the dread confines of eternal night, To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,
95 The deserts of creation, wide and wild; Where embryo systems and unkindled suns Sleep in the womb of chaos? fancy droops, And thought astonished stops her bold career. But O thou mighty mind! whose powerful word ioo Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were,4 Where shall I seek thy presence? how unblamed
3. Saturn marked the outmost bounds of the solar 4. An echo of Genesis 1.3. system until the discovery of Uranus in 1781.
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32 / ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Invoke thy dread perfection? Have the broad eyelids of the morn beheld thee? Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion
105 Support thy throne? O look with pity down On erring, guilty man! not in thy names Of terror clad; not with those thunders armed That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appalled The scattered tribes;5?thou hast a gentler voice,
no' That whispers comfort to the swelling heart, Abashed, yet longing to behold her Maker.
But now my soul, unused to stretch her powers In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, And seeks again the known accustomed spot,
115 Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams, A mansion fair, and spacious for its guest, And full replete with wonders. Let me here, Content and grateful, wait the appointed time, And ripen for the skies: the hour will come
120 When all these splendours bursting on my sight Shall stand unveiled, and to my ravished sense Unlock the glories of the world unknown.
1773
Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade1
Cease, Wilberforce, to urge thy generous aim! Thy Country knows the sin, and stands the shame! The Preacher, Poet, Senator in vain Has rattled in her sight the Negro's chain;
5 With his deep groans assail'd her startled ear, And rent the veil that hid his constant tear; Forc'd her averted eyes his stripes to scan, Beneath the bloody scourge laid bare the man, Claim'd Pity's tear, urg'd Conscience' strong control,
10 And flash'd conviction on her shrinking soul. The Muse too, soon awak'd, with ready tongue At Mercy's shrine applausive0 paeans rung; approving And Freedom's eager sons, in vain foretold A new Astrean reign,? an age of gold: reign of justice
15 She knows and she persists?Still Afric bleeds, Uncheck'd, the human traffic still proceeds; She stamps her infamy to future time,
5. When God came down to deliver the Ten Commandments 'there were thunders and lightnings . . . so that all the people . . . trembled' (Exodus 19.16). 1. On April 18, 1791, the politician and humanitarian Wilberforce (1759?1833) presented a motion in the House of Commons to abolish the slave trade. The motion was rejected a day later by a vote of 163 to 88. Sixteen years passed before the trade was outlawed in the British West Indies (1807), and another twenty-six before it was abolished in the rest of the British Empire (1833).
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E PISTLE TO W ILLIAM W ILBERFORCE, E SQ. / 3 3 And on her harden'd forehead seals the crime. In vain, to thy white standard gathering round, 20 Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found: In vain, to push to birth thy great design, Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join; All, from conflicting ranks, of power possest To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast. 25 Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail, A Nation's eloquence, combined, must fail: Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try; The plausive0 argument, the daring lie, specious The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds,
30 Th' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds: Bane of ingenuous minds, th' unfeeling sneer, Which, sudden, turns to stone the falling tear: They search assiduous, with inverted skill, For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill;
35 With impious mockery west the sacred page, And glean up crimes from each remoter age: Wrung Nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell, From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell; In Britain's senate, Misery's pangs give birth
40 To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth? Forbear!?thy virtues but provoke our doom, And swell th' account of vengeance yet to come; For, not unmark'd in Heaven's impartial plan, Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow-man?
45 And injur'd Afric, by herself redrest, Darts her own serpents at her Tyrant's breast. Each vice, to minds deprav'd by bondage known, With sure contagion fastens on his own; In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame,
50 And blows to rage impetuous Passion's flame: Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains The milky innocence of infant veins; There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire, The whirlwind wakes of uncontrol'd desire,
