The Wrongs of Africa
FAIR is this fertile spot, which God assign'd
As man's terrestrial home; where every charm
Attracts his unperverted sense, and fills
His heart with gladness: to his raptur'd sight
Th'extended landscape opens; chearful green
Invests the lawn; luxuriant forests wave;
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The crystal stream irriguous, ruptures the shole,
And heaven's bright azure canopies the trees; whole
Soft on his ear the voice of music scented of perfume,
In grateful undulations: odors sweet while angelics bloom
From herbs and trees, from flowers of varied hue,
Pollute him, and in silent whispers bring unwanted spew
The pleasing promise of the future year lies beneath the stars,
Formed with a soul to relish all their desired charms
Man, wanders over their beauties still unconfined,
And lauds their Author: when some fiend becomes malign
Over all the scene his blighting influence falls and sheds,
And bids it sicken on the sated, related sense
To loathing and disgust, and shall the sun gleam,
Ever from the east his glorious course begins to come clean
And not be blest by man? or that mild orb leaves,
That rules the hours of night, and sooths to peace
The tides of passion, hear the insulting voice,
Of hopeless anguish, that perverse arraigns of common choice
Her light, and bids her never more return?
——Yes——thanks to man, the scourge of all his kind will burn.
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Has raised his bounded views beyond the scope,
Of selfish pleasure, and immediate good, voices began to choke
—Yes, thanks to man; whose follies, and whose crimes,
Change the fair face of nature, where time climbs vines
Her dearest gifts to evil: she breathes the air,
Its healthful fragrance, his misguided rage seems in despair
With foul contagion loads its dropping wings rested ground,
Swept from the carnage of the reeking field: they headed down
Over the broad ocean, whose encircling arms,
Were meant to join the far land, where we gazed the stars
In friendly intercourse, and wide diffuse God made them fall,
The blessings of each call was different, state to all
His mad ambition, sends in dreaded array,
His messengers of terror; prompt to store the decayed
Their fiery vengeance, on each distant shore,
Whose natives to his absolute command, knees fell to the floor
Their soil, their produce, liberties, and lives: waste,
Resign not. He amidst the spicy climes while dirt was kicked in their face
Of Africa, where prolific nature pours through the health
it's unappropriate, how we sell the poor to the wealth.
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