Page:Slavery, a poem.pdf/20

Rh Tho' wounds there are which reason's force may heal, There needs no logic sure to make us feel. The nerve, howe'er untutor'd, can sustain A sharp, unutterable sense of pain; As exquisitely fashion'd in a slave, As where unequal fate a sceptre gave. Sense is as keen where Congo's sons preside, As where proud Tiber rolls his classic tide. Rhetoric or verse may point the feeling line, They do not whet sensation, but define. Did ever slave less feel the galling chain, When Zeno prov'd there was no ill in pain? Their miseries philosophic quirks deride, Slaves groan in pangs disown'd by Stoic pride. When the fierce Sun darts vertical his beams, And thirst and hunger mix their wild extremes;