- See, in the mineral bosom of their land, [190]
- How hard they toil! how soon their youthful limbs
- Feel the decrepitude of age! how soon
- Their teeth desert their sockets! and how soon
- Shaking paralysis unstrings their frame!
- Yet scarce, even then, are they allow’d to view [195]
- The glorious God of day, of whom they beg,
- With earnest hourly supplications, death;
-
Yet death slow comes, to torture them the more!
- WITH these compar’d, ye sons of Afric, say,
- How far more happy is your lot? Bland health, [200]
- Of ardent eye, and limb robust, attends
- Your custom’d labour; and, should sickness seize,
- With what solicitude are ye not nurs’d!—
- Ye Negroes, then, your pleasing task pursue;1
-
And, by your toil, deserve your master’s care. [205]
- WHEN first your Blacks are novel to the hoe;
- Study their humours:2 Some, soft-soothing words;
- Some, presents; and some, menaces subdue;
- And some I’ve known, so stubborn is their kind,
- Whom blows, alas! could win alone to toil. [210]