Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/354

 of the slave trade, perfectly orthodox on that whole subject, but a man of sense and observation, experience and sensibility, who had both seen and felt too much to undertake to found an argument for slavery, such as we hear nowadays on the pretended antipathy between the races; and who, in wishing to give a correct view of the state of things in the West Indies, thought it best to assume the disguise of verse and allegory. Happening to meet with the book, lately, at Charleston, the ode quite 'struck my fancy, and, by way of joke, I wrote off several copies, and sent them to a number of our leading southern statesmen at Washington. I dare say I can repeat it, preserving the ideas at least, if not always the words, and changing, as I did in my copies, the scene from Jamaica, where Edwards lays it, to this meridian, which it suits just about as well."

So saying, he repeated, with a sort of mock earnestness suited to their tone, the following stanzas, of which he afterwards gave me a copy: —

 Come to my bosom, genial fire, Soft sounds and lively thoughts inspire; Unusual is my theme; Not such dissolving Ovid sung, Nor melting Sappho's glowing tongue — More dainty mine I deem.

Sweet is the beam of morning bright, Yet sweet the sober shade of night, From rich Angola's shores; While beauty, clad in sable dye, Enchanting fires the wondering eye, Farewell, ye Paphian bowers!

O, sable queen! thy wild domain I seek, and court thy gentle reign,