Come, lovely Flora, aid me to pourtray
The rising beauties of the vernal day,
The grateful season that fresh life inspires,
Wakes the dull spirits, and resumes their fires;
That bids dead nature gaudy colours wear,
And paints with every hue th’ unfolding year!
As when from sombre shades, and gloomy night,
Joyous we rise, and hail the new born light,
Shake off the chains of lethargy to hear
Harmonious music charm the ravish’d ear,
By sleep refresh’d, by rest again made strong,
Mix in the scene, and join the busy throng;
Thus view Creation’s wide-extended plain,
Where sullen Winter held in dreary reign,
Where frost and snow deform’d each fertile vale,
The driving tempest, and the rattling hail.
Now spring the flowers, now teems the verdant ground,
And the gay landscape brightens all around;
Each plant resumes its native form and dye,
Some ting’d with red, some emulate the sky:
All in their native elegance of dress,
Welcome the Spring, its power benign confess!
The morn how sweet, how fair the rising dawn!
Gay shines the sun athwart the enamell’d lawn,
The new cloath’d earth drinks bibulous his ray,
And Nature glories in his equal sway.
Creation’s hymns ascend the source of light,
Whose golden splendors chase the brumal night;
Whose genial warmth o’erpowers the frigid north,
Pours plenty down, and calls fresh beauties forth.
Deep, deep, I hear each object swell the strain,
Exulting in auspicious Phœbus’ reign;
E’en things inanimate their incense raise,
And what was mute, grows vocal in his praise;
While ancient deities are all forgot,
Sleep in contempt, and unmolested rot.
When Jupiter enrag’d can storm no more,
Nor Neptune roll his billows to the shore;
When Egypt’s dogs no linen-priests surround,
And leeks unhonour’d cloath her fertile ground*;
Wise Persia’s god majestic keeps his sphere†,
Whom rolling worlds with all their tribes revere.
Be calm, ye storms; ye tempests, rage no more,
Nor waste your fury on the rugged shore;
Mild flow, ye waves; ye winds, no longer sweep,
With awful madness, o’er th’ expanded deep,
Nor dare to lift the towering surges high,
Foaming resistless to the lofty sky:
Avaunt, nor cloud the lustre of the day;
A milder reign succeeds, a gentler sway!
Come, beauteous Spring! come, hasten with my train,
Gentle and lovely, to assume thy reign;
The fairest flowers that early Nature yields,
That rise spontaneous in the fertile fields,
Or grace the banks of pure meand’ring rills,
Or love the sunshine on the sloping hills;
With richest gems shall thy bright crown adorn,
Empearl’d with dew-drops from the pointed thorn;
Though eastern monarchs boast their regal state,
On whom unnumber’d slaves obsequious wait,
Though deck’d with all that fills the flaming mine,
How mean their splendor, when compar’d with thine!
For thee again the birds resume their song,
Raise high their notes, and the glad strains prolong;
Their soft descant they teach the neighbouring grove,
And each close shade bears witness to their love.
Nor these alone; through wide Creation’s space,
From the low insect to the human race,
All hail thy influence, bless thy genial power,
Thou best enlivener of each chearful hour!
While aromatic plants perfume the air,
And flowers and shrubs are deck’d supremely fair.
As o’er their heads the balmy zephyrs play,
And gently fan them all the live-long day,
The sons of age feet happier days return,
With joys renew’d and fresh emotions burn;
Shake off the gloom contracted by their years,
As round their temples wave their hoary hairs.
Soon as the bird of morn proclaims the dawn,
And quits, on fluttering wings, the dewy lawn,
Forth rush the swains, regardless of the toil,
To break the glebe, and fertilize the soil;
With chearful hearts their constant labour ply,
Till Sol’s bright beams desert the western sky;
Then homeward bending, taste unbroken rest,
For seldom anguish racks the guiltless breast;
Save where fond love attacks the feeling heart,
And the soft passions generous warmth impart;
Save where the lover, pensive and alone,
Makes woods and caves re-echo to his moan;
And every thought intent on some coy fair,
With bitter wailing fills the ambient air.
Almighty Love! say whence those melting fires,
Those glowing transports, and those soft desires,
That warm the soul; and, every sense refin’d,
That humanize the fierce, obdurate mind?
From Nature all--from Nature’s God they flow,
Who bade the breast with pure emotions glow:
When heaven-born Virtue binds with sacred ties,
And smiling beauty fascinates the eyes,
He, source of all, adorns the laughing day,
And bids the flowers their gaudy tints display;
With vernal gales dispenses life around,
While love and music through each grove resound.
[* Alluding to the ancient Egyptian form of worship.]
[† The sun was adored by the Persians.]
[[Source:
Original: _Parnassian sprigs: or, poetical miscellanies_, 1777, by
William Fordyce Mavor 1758-1837.
“AWAKE my Muse! assist me to pourtray
The striking beauties of the vernal Day,
The grateful season that fresh life inspires,
Wakes the dull spirits, and relumes their fires,”
Most of the section between “enamell’d lawn” and “Be calm, ye
storms!” is missing (6 lines in the original as against 18 in the
New-York Weekly).
The section from “sloping hills” to “For thee again” is an imperfect
match (7 lines : 6 lines).
Possible source: _Scots Magazine_ 1783, ed. Boswell, has the same
footnotes.]]
_NEW-YORK: +Printed by JOHN TIEBOUT, No. 358, Pearl-Street, for THOMAS
BURLING, Jun. & Co.+ +Subscriptions+ for this +Magazine+ (at 6s. per
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THE NEW-YORK WEEKLY MAGAZINE;
or, Miscellaneous Repository.
+Vol. II.+] +Wednesday, May 10, 1797.+ [+No. 97.+
THE AFRICAN’s COMPLAINT.
Phœbus had immersed his flaming forehead in the Western main--smoothly
glided the wild zephyrs, gently murmuring amongst the resounding
foliage--Cynthia in blushing majesty began faintly to gild with silver
tints the distant hills--a thousand glittering gems sparkled through the
circumambient hemisphere--Nature seemed smiling to invite to nocturnal
contemplation the sons of philosophy:--courted by the enchanting scenes,
and enveloped in a pleasing reverie, I walked forth amongst the
surrounding shades.----“Happy, ye freeborn sons of Columbia,” exclaimed
I, “liberty and plenty bless your domestic retirements; war,
devastation, and wide-wasting rapine have fled from your peaceful
shores--no murderous assassin, or night prowling incendiary, carries the
hidden dagger of slaughter, or dread torch of destruction to disturb
your uninterrupted tranquility; no hostile armies to snatch from your
tender embrace the son, the husband, the father, or brother--No.”
I would have proceeded, but a voice that seemed to pierce through my
inmost soul issued from the adjacent shades; despair and anguish
vibrated on the fleeting sounds--my soliloquy was broken.--“Farewell
every pleasure,” it exclaimed in a voice rendered almost inarticulate by
grief. “Adieu, ye native skies! No more shall the unhappy Corymbo rest
beneath the spreading arbors of Congo--No more shall the charms of the
lovely Yonka give pleasure and delight to a bosom racked with the most
excruciating pains; Oh, ye aged parents! what were your feelings, how
did your bosoms heave, when your child, your Corymbo, was torn from you
by the cruel unfeeling Christian--forced into a floating dungeon more
terrible than death itself--bartered as a slave--exposed to contempt and
scorn--unjustly marked with the whip of tyranny--his labour unjustly
extorted from him--denied the common necessaries of life--trampled on by
a monster, whose avaricious heart outvies the adamant, unsusceptible of
the tender feelings of lost humanity! Oh! thou invisible being, who
sustains the universe! why dost thou suffer thy votaries to perpetrate
such barbarity under the sanction of thy venerable name?--Hold. Why do I
upbraid heaven? Death will ere long liberate my distracted soul. Oh! how
ineffable glows my breast--the delectable view showers some drops of
comfort into my tortured mind. Flow swift ye intervening moments! come
thou welcome hour! when my spirit shall quit this sinking frame, and
wafted on the wings of wind, shall fearless dart across the Atlantic and
again embrace those tender, once dear, but now distant companions of my
youth.--But why do I linger. My master is now waiting to receive an
account of my labour--perhaps the torturing lash.” Here came back, like
an inundation, the remembrance of his slavery, which only for a moment
fled to give room for a beam of comfort, which soon subsided and left
more acute sensations than before. Sobs and inarticulate expressions
were all that he could utter, whilst in hasty steps he wandered from my
hearing. For some moments I remained stupid, petrified to the spot;
still, methought, I heard the sounds of misery echoing amongst the
lonely shades. “Ungrateful countrymen,” I exclaimed, “why do ye deny
those inestimable blessings, to your fellow men that heaven has so
eminently dignified you with? Or, why so callous to tender pity as to
lacerate the flesh of the innocent? Oh, ye votaries of christianity! how
can ye reconcile your execrable conduct with the precepts of the divine,
the exalted and elevated maxims of the great founder of your system.”
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