Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

A Poem on the Bill Lately Passed for Regulating the Slave Trade

London

Printed for T. Cadell

1788

"His sway the harden'd bosom leads / To Cruelty's remorseless deeds; / Like the blue lightning when it springs / With fury on its livid wings, / Darts to its goal with baleful force, / Nor heeds that ruin marks its course."

Then seize the moments in your power,
To Mercy consecrate the hour!
Risque something in her cause at lasat,
And thus atone for all the past;
Break the hard fetters of the Slave;
And learn the luxury to save!--
Does Avarice, your god, delight
With agony to feast his sight?
Does he requre that victims slain,
And human blood, his altars stain?
Ah, not alone of power possest
To check each virtue of the breast;
As when the numbing frosts arise,
The charm of vegetation dies;
His sway the harden'd bosom leads
To Cruelty's remorseless deeds;
Like the blue lightning when it springs
With fury on its livid wings,
Darts to its goal with baleful force,
Nor heeds that ruin marks its course.--
(pp. 20-1, ll. 301-320)

Weather::Lightning

Reading

Only 1 entry in ESTC (1788).

Helen Maria Williams, A Poem on the Bill Lately Passed for Regulating the Slave Trade (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1788). <Link to ECCO><Link to facsimile edition in Google Books>

09/02/2011