To these past and present prospects the following Poems occasionally
allude: to the English custom of exciting wars upon the Slave Coast that
they may purchase prisoners, and to the punishment sometimes inflicted
upon a Negro for murder, of which Hector St. John was an eye-witness.



SONNET I

Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Nigers tainted flood
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear
The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore
Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,
With laurels water'd by the widow's tear
Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!
And like the desolating whirlwinds sweep,
Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;
For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there
Breathes his gold-gender'd pestilence afar,
And calls to share the prey his kindred Daemon War.



SONNET II

Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,