WOMAN! MR. LEDYARD, as quoted by M. PARKE, in his Travels into Africk. "To a Woman I never addressed myself in the language of "decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and 66 friendly answer. If I was hungry or thirsty, wet or sick, "they did not hesitate, like Men, to perform a generous "action: in so free and kind a manner did they contribute "to my relief, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest "draught; and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a "double relish." PLACE the white-man on Africk's coast, And paint their very demons white: To soothe the woes they cannot feel, 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," "And far unlike our nobler race, she cries; "With crisped locks and rolling eyes; "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, "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. ""Tis good the fainting soul to cheer, "The powers above, our Lapland bless, "By feeling those that we bestow!" Thus in extremes of cold and heat, She makes the female breast her seat, Man may the sterner virtues know, And Woman holds affliction dear; |