Who but a slave can well express

Who but a slave can well express

Of liberty the happiness;

The wretched captive who is nobly born,

Whose tender hands with rugged oars are worn

Not half the miseries can prove,

As I, unhappy I, have felt in love.

Ah! powerful Love! what cursed arts

Hast thou to torture human hearts;

All the most strange and uncouth ways to die

Found out to please a tyrant's cruelty.

Fire, poison, racks, gammots and wheels

But faintly copy what a lover feels.

But being freed, methinks I stand

Naked and shiv'ring on the strand,

Cursing the treach'rous waves and winds but scorn

Myself for leaving of my native shore.

Thus my past follies make me wise

And strongly guard me from a new surprise.