Thomson and Pollok: containing The seasons, by James Thomson, and The course of time, by Robert Pollok, A. M.

BOOK rv. 241
And bad the fruit it bore. Then wonder not,
That long the nations from it richly reaped
Oppression, slavery, tyranny, and war;
Confusion, desolation, trouble, shame.
And marvellous though it seem, this monster, when
It took the name of slavery, as oft
It did, had advocates to plead its cause;
Beings that walked erect, and spoke like men;
Of Christian parentage descended, too,
And dipped in the baptismal font, as sign
Of dedication to the Prince who bowed
To death, to set the sin-bound prisoner free,
Unchristian thought! on what pretence soe'er
Of right, inherited, or else acquired;
Of loss, or profit, or what plea you name,
To buy and sell, to barter, whip, and hold
In chains, a being of celestial make;
Of kindred form, of kindred faculties,
Of kindred feelings, passions, thoughts, desires;
Born free, and heir of an immortal hope;
Thought villanous, absurd, detestable!
Unworthy to be harbored in a fiend!
And only overreached in wickedness
By that, birth, too, of earthly liberty,
Which aimed to make a reasonable man
By legislation think, and by the sword
Believe. This was that liberty renowned,
Those equal rights of Greece and Rome, where men,
All, but a few, were bought, and sold, and scourged,
And killed, as interest or caprice enjoined;
In after times talked of, written of, so much,
That most, by sound and custom led away,
Believed the essence answered to the name.
Historians on this theme were long and warm.
Statesmen, drunk with the fumes of vain debate,
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