Charles Tompson Jr.

“ O’er the sad trophies of mortality!
Life is a sandy base, which if we trust,
Our minds, our spirits, centre in the dust;
We feel no monitor—no heavenly thrill—
Prompt us to good, or bid us shrink from ill,
But all the soul, by worldly frenzy tost,
Trusts in itself, and is for ever lost.
’Tis thus, self-wise, the atheist’s bosom swells,
Nor thought of God nor hell within him dwells;
His soul is sin, to profanation grown;
Bound to himself, and to himself alone;
He spurns those truths, to man divinely giv’n,
And laughs and scoffs at promises of Heav’n! ”

“ But these were thoughts youth’s riper hours disown,
Thoughts of a child, and of a child alone.
Nature has giv’n all creatures to be free,
And Man in embryo pants for liberty;
It is a charm instructive, and which dwells
In all, and all to one great wish impels;—
It bids the Negro spurn his galling chain,
And curse—tho’ vainly curse—its unearn’d pain;
It bids the captive lion, in his grate,
Burst its strong bars and re-assume his state;
By it impell’d, the youngling eagle flies,
Spurns the low plain and soars along the skies.
But yet it most befits the human race ”

“ Wave your light wand and beck your fairy train;
There, in idea, ’twill retrace the day,
Again ’twill study, and again ’twill play;
’Twill rove, perhaps, amid ethereal flow’rs,
Or dwell with angels in celestial bow’rs;
’Twill fearless climb the dark impending steep,
Bend o’er the flood and plunge along the deep;
More guilty dreams the mind cannot employ,
Whose charm is innocence, whose gladness joy:
O, could man ever own such dreams as these,
His days all happiness—his nights all peace,
E’en angels might for human semblance sigh,
And gladly shake off immortality! ”