Quote#Death
To him the heavens a fearful aspect wear
Quote byElizabeth Benger · 1775–1827
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Abolition of the Slave Trade (1810).
English (original)
To him the heavens a fearful aspect wear, Strange are the accents murmur’d in his ear. He steals no balm from pity’s lenient breath Hope sheds no gleam, but through the vale of death: An alien, far from nature’s bosom cast, He broods on wrongs, the present and the past; And asks what vengeance shall the wretches wait, Who bade him mourn within the stranger’s gate.
— Elizabeth Benger
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All human archives in this truth accord, That feeble man is Ruin’s mighty lord; States rise and fall as ages roll away, But vice survives, the passions ne’er decay; New tyrants start, where conquest once has been, The drama constant, tho’ …
Devoted victim of the crimes accurst, By hatred cherish’d, and by av’rice nurs'd; Crimes that with Europe’s sordid sons began, The rude barbarian’s gift from polished man.
Brighter from her disease she shines, As fire the precious gold refines. Thus when the silent grave becomes Pregnant with life as fruitful wombs; When the wide seas and spacious earth Resign us to our second birth;
But see! the pains begin to fly; Tho’ Venus bled she could not die: See the new phœnix point her eyes, And lovelier from her ashes rise.
'Tis the night—the night Of the grave's delight, And the warlocks are at their play! Ye think that without, The wild winds shout, But no, it is they—it is they!
Good Christian People, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here to die.
