The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

WILL CLEWLINE.
By Edward Rushton.*

From Jamaica's hot clime, and her pestilent dews,
From the toil of a sugar-house bark,
From those perilous boatings that oft thin the crews,
And fill the wide maw of the shark;

From fever, storm, famine, and all the sad store
Of hardships, by seamen endured.
Behold poor Will Clewline escaped! and once more,
With his wife and his children safe moored!

View the raptures that beamed in his sun-embrowned face,
While he holds his loved Kate to his breast--.
While his little ones trooping to share his embrace,
Contend who shall first be caressed.

View them climb his storm-beaten knee, while each tiny heart
Swells,
As he presses the oft rosy lip,
And of cocoa-nut, sugar, and tamarinds talks,
That are soon to arrive from the ship.

Then see him reclined in his favourite chair,
With his arm round the neck of his love;
Who tells how his friends and his relatives fare,
And how their dear younglings improve.

The evening approaches---and round the snug fire,
Their little ones sport on the floor,
When lo! while each accent, each glance is desire,
Loud thunderings are heard at the door.

And now like a tempest that sweeps through the sky,
And kills the first buds of the year,
Oh view, 'midst the region of innocent joy,
A gang of fierce ruffians appear;

They seize on their prey, all relentless as fate,
He struggles---is instantly bound,
Wild scream the poor children, and lo! his loved Kate,
Sinks pale and convulsed to the ground!

To the hold of a tender, deep, crowded, and foul,
Now view the brave seaman confined:
And on the bare planks, all indignant of soul,
All unfriended, behold him reclined,

The children's wild screamings still ringing in his ear,
He broods on his Kate's poignant pain;
He bears the cat-hauling---his pangs are severe;
He feels---but he scorns to complain.

Arrived now at Plymouth the poor enslaved tar
Is to combat for freedom and laws;
Is to brave the rough surge in a vessel of war;
He sails, and soon dies in the cause.

Kate hears the sad tidings, and never smiles more,
She falls a meek martyr to grief,
The children, kind friends and relations deplore,
But the parish alone gives relief.

Ye statesmen, who manage this cold blooded land,
And who boast of your seamen's exploits.
Ah! think how your death-dealing bulwarks are manned,
And learn to respect human rights:

Like felons, no more let the sons of the main
Be severed from all that is dear:
If their sufferings and wrongs be a national stain,
Let those sufferings and wrongs disappear.

* Mr. Rushton, like Milton and Homer, is a blind poet.
He has been deprived of his eye-sight for some years. He formerly resided at Liverpool, England: his present residence we do not know.