He rises, slowly moves, his body bent,
Propp'd on two staffs, and shaking as he went ;
Scarce all his people stop his desp❜rate course,
While strong affliction gives the feeble force;
Grief tears his heart and drives him to and fro,

In all the raging agonies of woe :

"Help me to go, my friends, where sorrow calls;
And die triumphant by yon wooden walls;
Guide or companion, lo! I ask you none,
Nay, but I'll die by my beloved son;
I'll go and meet the murd'rer of my boy,
I'll kill the treach'rous villain, or I'll die.
Ah! would almighty Jove once more renew
The vig'rous strength of youth which once I knew,
When by this hand, beneath our verdant wall,
King MINGO saw his vanquish'd army fall,
When victor of the field and crown'd with fame,
With piles of hostile bodies fed the flame,
And tho' thrice wounded on the dreadful plain,
Yet thrice reviv'd, and arm'd, and fought again.
Such were I now, not all the dire alarms
Of barb'rous foes should tear him from my arms;
But hear, oh heav'n! and thou great ruler hear,
With kind regard, a king's and father's pray'r :
Avenge my son, and at thy dread command,
May sharks devour them ere they reach their land;
Transfix'd with thunder, may they fall a prey
To ev'ry monster in the watry way;

Oh let thy bolts be launch'd against the train,
And haughty LECLERC press th' ensanguin'd plain :
My valiant sons and warriors in their bloom,
By them where hurl'd into an early tomb.
LOUVERTURE last, thy loss, divinely brave,
Sinks my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave:

My son, my loving son, would I had dy'ď
In thy defence, and languish'd by thy side;
Thus shar'd thy sweet society in death,

Pant on thy breast, and gasp my latest breath!
For thee, my son, for thee, my sorrows flow,
Born to thy own, and to thy parents woe.
But could LOUVERTURE merit thus, whose breath
Expir'd not meanly in inactive death?

He pour'd his latest blood in manly fight,
And fell a hero in his country's right:
Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright,
I'll die, or slaughter LECLERC in the fight.
Content, by the same hand, let me expire,
Add to the murder'd son the wretched sire:
One cold embrace at least may be allow'd,
And my last tears be mingled with his blood.”
And now his consort with pathetic cries,
Renews her plaints, and thus in brief replies:
"Ah! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind,
And where the prudence now that aw'd mankind?
Thro' CONGO once, and all our regions known,
Now all confus'd, distracted, overthrown
Singly to pass thro' hosts of foes and face,
Oh! heart of steel, the murd❜rer of thy race;
To view those deathful eyes, and wonder o'er
These hands yet reeking with LOUVERTURE's gore;
Alas? my dear, they know not how to spare,
And what their mercy, thy slain sons declare:
To calm their barb'rous and their direful rage,
Vain were your dignity, and vain your age.
No, pent up in some forrest let us give
To grief, the wretched days we have to live.
Oh! in the Christians' blood might I allay
My grief, and these barbarities repay :

But thou, oh Jove! avenge our wrongs." She cries,
While tears of rage stood burning in her eyes. -
Now, lo! the pensive train approaching near,
The breathless body stretch'd upon a bier;
All beautiful in death the hero lay,

As some sweet flow'r scorch'd by the solar ray.
The monarch saw the corpse with eager eyes,
"And oh! my son, my darling son," he cries,
In haste, and moving with his body bent,
Propp'd on his staffs, and weeping as he went,
With thronging crowds towards the fatal plains,
Nor maid, nor matron, in the town remains.
In ev'ry face a weight of grief was shown,
The dames send forth one universal groan.
Close to the town they meet the weeping train,
Hang on the bier, and grovel round the slain;
The wretched mother frantic with despair,
Kiss'd his wan cheeks, and tore her sable hair :
But nothing can the loving sire restrain,
He wrings his hands, the tears pour down amain;
He beats his breast as to his son he flew,

And grovel'd there, as to the corpse he grew,
With kisses wanders o'er his face, and rears
The body up, and bathes the wound with tears;
He falls, he faints, and on the corpse he lay,
And there had sigh'd and sorrow'd out the day;
But now the wretched mother first arose,
"Forbear (she cry'd,) this violence of woes;
First to the town let all the train proceed,
Then pour your boundless sorrows o'er the dead."
The waves of people at her word divide,

Slow mov'd the mourners thro' the following tide;
Ev'n to the prince's house the pomp they wait,
And groaning place him on a bed of state ;

A melancholy company around,

With plaintive sighs, and music's mournful sound :
Alternately they sing, alternate flow

Th' obedient tears, melodious in their woe,
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart,
And nature speaks at ev'ry pause of art.

But not as yet the fatal news had spread
To charming SILVAN, of her hero dead.
Far in the close recesses of a grove,

She went to weep his wrongs, her hapless love.
Now from the town the clamors reach her ear,
And all her members shake with sudden fear;
She stops the pearly sorrows as the fall,

And calls her maid....her maid obeys the call.
"Ah! follow me, (she cry'd) what plaintive noise
Invades my ear; 'tis sure my mother's voice;
My falt'ring knees their trembling frame desert,
A pulse unusual flutters at my heart;

Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate,
(Oh! Jove, avert it,) threats our native state;
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest,
But much I fear LOUVERTURE'S dauntless breast
Pursues the Christians o'er the purple plain,
By force or fraud, I fear, I fear him slain;
Safe in the croud he ever scorn'd to wait,
And sought for glory in the jaws of death;
Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath,
Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death."
She spoke, and speaking, with distracted pace,
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face ;
Flies from the grove, the maids her steps pursue,
She approach'd her house, and sends around her view :
Too soon her eyes the killing object found,

The corpse, her father fainted on the ground.

A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes,

She faints, she falls, she sends forth piercing cries:
Around a train of weeping matrons stand,

To raise her sinking with assistant hand;
Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again
She faints, while rushing to her hero slain;
And when reviv'd, straight to the corpse she flew,
Around his neck her sable arms she threw :

"And oh! my prince, my dearest prince, (she cries)
- Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes;
Thou to the unknown realms forever gone,
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone.

Our helpless babes, once comfort of our pain,
Sad product now of hapless love remain ;
To manly age ne'er shall our children rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:
For CONGO now, her great defender slain,
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.
Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er,

Those wives must wait then to a foreign shore;

And ye, my children, will be forc❜d to go,
The sad companions of your mother's woe;

Driv'n hence, poor slaves, before the Christians' sword,
Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord.

Alas, my prince!" she cries, tears pour amain,
And drown the words of the unhappy dame.

And lo! she on the corpse her body threw,
And press'd him close, as to his breast she grew ;
Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes

Fall the round chrystal drops, while thus she cries;
"Ah, dearest prince, in whom high heav'n hath join'd
The mildest manners with the bravest mind!