The Starting-Post; or, Clarkson at Wades-Mill, by Bernard Barton
"Coming in sight of Wades-Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the road-side, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner, I reached home. This was in the summer of 1785."
Clarkson's History of Abolition, Vol. I. p. 210.
A wanderer by the road-way side,
Where leafy tall trees grow,
Casting their branching shadows wide,
Sits on the turf below.
Though rich the landscape, hill, and plain,
Before him there out-spread ;
One hand holds fast his bridle-rein,
One props his thoughtful head.
The flush of youth is on his brow,
Its fire is in his eye;
And yet the first is pensive now,
The latter nought can spy.
Does proud Ambition's fitful gleam
Light up his soul within?
Or fond Affection's gentler dream
Prompt him Love's bliss to win?
These are forgotten, or unknown :
For, o'er the Atlantic main,
His ear has caught the captive's groan,
Has heard his clanking chain.
Nor less from Afric's land afar,
Borne by the billowy waves,
The hideous din of sordid War,
The shrieks of kidnapped slaves.
The iron of that galling yoke
Has entered in his soul!
How shall Power's tyrant spell be broke?
The sick at heart made whole?
Who, e'en on Albion's far-famed Isle,
Where Freedom gives her laws,
Nobly forgetting self the while,
Shall live but for her cause?
Who, the Apostle of her Creed,
Shall journey to and fro,
Her universal rights to plead,
And Slavery overthrow?
"Thou art the man!" the Prophet cried;
The awe-struck Monarch heard;
And, while his heart with anguish sighed,
Compunction's depths were stirred.
As clear, as vivid the appeal
To Freedom's Champion given:
And God himself hath set his seal,
The message was from Heaven!
Bernard Barton.