This is that heir to shame and pain,
For whom I only could descry
A world of trouble and disdain: 
Yet, could I bear to see her die,
Or stretch her feeble hands in vain,
And, weeping, beg of me supply?

No! though the fate thy mother knew
Was shameful! shameful though thy race
Have wander’d all a lawless crew,
Outcasts despised in every place;

Yet as the dark and muddy tide,
When far from its polluted source,
Becomes more pure and purified,
Flows in a clear and happy course;

In thee, dear infant! so may end
Our shame, in thee our sorrows cease,
And thy pure course will then extend,
In floods of joy, o’er vales of peace.

Oh! by the god who loves to spare,
Deny me not the boon I crave;
Let this loved child your mercy share,
And let me find a peaceful grave: 
Make her yet spotless soul your care,
And let my sins their portion have;
Her for a better fate prepare,
And punish whom ’twere sin to save!

Magistrate.

Recall the word, renounce the thought,
Command thy heart and bend thy knee;
There is to all a pardon brought,
A ransom rich, assured and free;
’Tis full when found, ’tis found if sought,
Oh! seek it, till ’tis seal’d to thee.

Vagrant.

But how my pardon shall I know?

Magistrate.

By feeling dread that ’tis not sent,
By tears for sin that freely flow,
By grief, that all thy tears are spent,
By thoughts on that great debt we owe,
With all the mercy God has lent,
By suffering what thou canst not show,
Yet showing how thine heart is rent,
Till thou canst feel thy bosom glow,
And say, “My saviour, I repent!”

1807

“Woman!”

To a Woman I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer.  If I was hungry or thirsty, wet or sick, they did not hesitate, like Men, to perform a generous action:  in so free and kind a manner did they contribute to my relief, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish.

Mr Ledyard, as quoted by Mungo Park in his travels into Africa.

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Place the white man on Afric’s coast,
Whose swarthy sons in blood delight,
Who of their scorn to Europe boast,
And paint their very demons white: 
There, while the sterner sex disdains
To soothe the woes they cannot feel,
Woman will strive to heal his pains,
And weep for those she cannot heal: 
Hers is warm pity’s sacred glow;
From all her stores she bears a part,
And bids the spring of hope re-flow,
That languish’d in the fainting heart.

“What though so pale his haggard face,
So sunk and sad his looks,”—­she cries;
“And far unlike our nobler race,
With crisped locks and rolling eyes;
Yet misery marks him of our kind;
We see him lost, alone, afraid;
And pangs of body, griefs in mind,
Pronounce him man, and ask our aid.