WOMAN!

MR. LEDYARD, AS QUOTED BY MUNGO PARKE IN HIS TRAVELS INTO AFRICA —

Place the white man on Afric's coast,
 Whose swarthy sons in blood delight,
 Who of their scorn to Europe boast,
 And paint their very demons white:
 There, while the sterner sex disdains
 To soothe the woes they cannot feel,
 Woman will strive to heal his pains,
 And weep for those she cannot heal:
 Hers is warm pity's sacred glow;
 From all her stores, she bears a part,
 And bids the spring of hope re-flow,
 That languish'd in the fainting heart. 

 "What though so pale his haggard face,
" So sunk and sad his looks, "— she cries;
" And far unlike our nobler race,
 "With crisped locks and rolling eyes;
" Yet misery marks him of our kind. 
 "We see him lost, alone, afraid;
" And pangs of body, griefs in mind,
 "Pronounce him man, and ask our aid. 

 "Perhaps in some far-distant shore,
" There are who in these forms delight;
 "Whose milky features please them more,
" Than ours of jet thus burnish'd bright;
 "Of such may be his weeping wife,
" Such children for their sire may call,
 "And if we spare his ebbing life,
" Our kindness may preserve them all. " 

Thus her compassion Woman shows,
 Beneath the line her acts are these;
 Nor the wide waste of Lapland-snows
 Can her warm flow of pity freeze: —
 "From some sad land the stranger comes,
" Where joys like ours are never found;
 "Let's soothe him in our happy homes,
" Where freedom sits, with plenty crown'd. 

 "'T is good the fainting soul to cheer,
" To see the famish'd stranger fed;
 "To milk for him the mother-deer,
" To smooth for him the furry bed. 
 "The powers above our Lapland bless
" With good no other people know;
 "T' enlarge the joys that we possess,
" By feeling those that we bestow! " 

Thus in extremes of cold and heat,
 Where wandering man may trace his kind;
 Wherever grief and want retreat,
 In Woman they compassion find;
 She makes the female breast her seat,
 And dictates mercy to the mind. 

Man may the sterner virtues know,
 Determined justice, truth severe;
 But female hearts with pity glow,
 And Woman holds affliction dear;
 For guiltless woes her sorrows flow,
 And suffering vice compels her tear;
 'T is hers to soothe the ills below,
 And bid life's fairer views appear:
 To Woman's gentle kind we owe
 What comforts and delights us here;
 They its gay hopes on youth bestow,
 And care they soothe, and age they cheer.