Alas! I left them on my native shore!
Stern Want around me pour'd her chilling woes,
And no faint beam, to cheer my winter, rose.

"At length, when years, with slow-revolving round,
Had half assuaged my soul's eternal wound,
And rural peace my humble efforts bless'd
With one short calm of momentary rest;
Sudden, the demons of tyrannic war }
Whirl thro' our peaceful haunts his rapid car, }
And waving standards kindle all the air: }
In crackling heaps the flaming forests rise,
The smoking cities darken half the skies.
Thro' burning woods and falling towers I sprung,
While torches hiss'd, and darts around me sung,
And, still expectant of some happier time,
Sought distant refuge in another clime.

"My term of sorrows came not: black Despair,
And lawless Force, and shrinking Fear, were there.
Woes, yet unfelt, were nigh;--fell Slavery shed
Her night of sorrows on my hapless head:
Doom'd each imperious order to fulfil,
And watch a ruthless master's various will.
Five years, exposed to unremitted pain,
I languish'd there--'till Friendship broke my chain.

"Now o'er my head full fifteen suns had burn'd, }
Since from my native rocks my eyes I turn'd: }
And practised now in woe, my soul no longer mourn'd. }