EMANCIPATION.

CEASE, ACHMED! cease, to goad thy harrass’d mind,

With cares, with sorrows, or with treacheries past;

Swell with thy sighs no more th’ autumnal wind,

That hastes to mingle with the wintry blast.

Think’st thou while mountain echoes mock thy woe,

That savage beasts, wild-startling at the sound,

Will sympathetic, kind sensations know,

Or pitying vultures sooth thy bosom’s wound?

Deem’st thou thy murmurings will plead with fate,

Reverse one instance of its stern decree,

Of future ills remove the destined date,

Or set thy soul from present evils free?

Could murmurings, could repinings ease one grief,

Restore one comfort from the bosom torn;

Then might thy heavy heart expect relief

From a dread glooming o’er its lot forlorn.

No!—Different far the tendency of these,

They sap the deep foundations of the mind,

Augment each sorrow into dark disease;

While DEATH stalks dreary in their train behind.

Fleet as the antelope for safety flies,

When he beholds the dread hyæna near,

Swift as the whirlwind sweeps along the skies,

Fly from those demons that assail thee here.

Start from their hideous features with dismay:

Thy more than life—thy comforts they destroy;

While thou sad-sighing all the tedious day,

Feed’st on the scorpion-poison of thy joy.

JOY! whence that empty word’s unmeaning sound?

Delusive phantom of the young and gay;

Once fondly sought, but ah! no sooner found,

Than torn by cruel destiny away.

Yet tho’ condemn’d to quit my native shore,

And range these lonely wilds to man unknown;

Why should I hourly thus my lot deplore,

And to the midnight howl unite my moan?

While in the HARAM of DELIGHT I lay,

Bound in soft fetters of luxurious ease;

Pass’d like the dancer’s step each smiling day,

’Till PLEASURE almost lost the power to please.

The simple charms of NATURE all disdain’d,

Amidst the meretricious blaze of ART;

Tumultuous passions in my bosom reign’d,

And false allurements triumph’d o’er my heart.

Tho’ slaves obsequious flew at my command,

Myself an abject slave more truly grown,

Moved but by courtly favor’s magic wand,

And almost fear’d an earthly tyrant’s frown.

His angry mandate now has set me free,

Wide o’er the world to range beyond controul;

With banishment he gave me liberty,

And broke the fetters that enchain’d my soul.