[Footnote A: So lately as the year 1793, the small-pox was carried to the
Isle of France by a Dutch ship, and there destroyed five thousand four
hundred persons in six weeks.--Woodville.]
A stranger youth, from his meridian sky,
Buoyant with hopes, came here but came to _die_!
O'er his sad fate I've ponder'd hours away,
It suits the languor of a gloomy day:
He left his bamboo groves, his pleasant shore,
He left his friends to hear new oceans roar,
All confident, ingenuous, and bold,
He heard the wonders by the white men told;
With firm assurance trod the rolling deck,
And saw his isle diminish to a speck,
Plough'd the rough waves, and gain'd our northern clime,
In manhood's ripening sense and nature's prime.
Oh! had the fiend been vanquished ere he came,
The gen'rous youth had spread my country's fame.
Had known that honour dwells among the brave,
And England had not prov'd the stranger's grave:
Then, ere his waning sand of life had run,
Poor ABBA THULE might hare seen his son! [A]
[Footnote A: Lee Boo, second son of the King of the Pelew Islands, was
brought to England by Capt.
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